Is it moral for our governments to impose poverty on us?

[Immanuel Can]

In short: I'll suffer on my own terms, not someone else's.

Ask anyone in such a system if they feel that way.

I can do that.

I feel divided.

On the one hand, I don't want to be bankrupted by a sudden illness, or by the illness of a loved one.

On the other, I can't escape the fact that the current system is bankrupting the country, driving doctors to move to other countries, extending wait times, limiting research and treatments, and depriving people of innovative and advanced medicine. Wait times where I live, for emergency rooms, may well run for six hours, even if you're in pain. They left my brother in screaming agony for an entire night, because they had no staff to treat him. Likewise, an advanced technology that might have spared my wife ten hours of invasive, horrible surgery was simply not available to us: it could all have been done with lasers, but they didn't have them, and wouldn't subsidize them in the US. So they cut her open and hacked her up, instead. It was brutal.

But, on the other hand, we aren't reduced to poverty by the costs of that surgery.

Anyone who thinks the idea of universal medical care is not seriously problematic has no idea what he or she is talking about. There's nothing free about it: it's the biggest single expense your government will ever have, and the biggest reason you'll get taxed into oblivion. It will also take away treatment options, and make newer technologies unavailable to you. Your doctors will migrate to where the money and the more modern procedures are available.

But also, anyone who thinks being bankrupted by a single illness is a good idea is also nuts.

So I sit on the fence. I wish there were a better answer.

[Greatest I am]

Which system?

The gilded cage? We got any posters from a socialist craphole who wanna speak to the virtues of true universal medical care?

Autonomy? As an uninsured fella who racked up some uncomfortable medical bills in the last couple or three years, I tell you plainly: I'd rather be worryin' about my shit (and comin' up with some novel solutions) than walk an unwaverin' line laid by some one else that offers me X, and only X.

In short: I'll suffer on my own terms, not someone else's.

You speak from a position of not knowing what you are talking about and only thinking of your welfare and screw the rest.

Nice living by the Golden Rule ace.


Regards
DL

[henry quirk]

'Do unto others as you have them do unto you.'

Me: I want others to leave me be.

[henry quirk]

There's no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem (which itself is a knot of problems, each with no simple solution).

For me & mine: I've settled on dealin' with retired doctors who practice quietly (and off the books), negotiating with hospitals & those workin' with hospitals (and questioning every damned item that shows up on a bill). I pay more than I like, but significantly less than you'd expect. It's not a perfect system (not everyone wants to negotiate & the ones that do still look to make a hefty buck), but on the plus side, me negoiatin' relieves them of a vast amount of paperwork (cost savings on their side) as it does me.

But not everyone can do what I do, I get that. What folks like GIA need to get is some of us don't wanna be hemmed in by codified expediency. Go, have your universal medical care...just leave me & mine alone to try sumthin' else.

[Greatest I am]

There's no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem (which itself is a knot of problems, each with no simple solution).

For me & mine: I've settled on dealin' with retired doctors who practice quietly (and off the books), negotiating with hospitals & those workin' with hospitals (and questioning every damned item that shows up on a bill). I pay more than I like, but significantly less than you'd expect. It's not a perfect system (not everyone wants to negotiate & the ones that do still look to make a hefty buck), but on the plus side, me negoiatin' relieves them of a vast amount of paperwork (cost savings on their side) as it does me.

But not everyone can do what I do, I get that. What folks like GIA need to get is some of us don't wanna be hemmed in by codified expediency. Go, have your universal medical care...just leave me & mine alone to try sumthin' else.

Sure, something backwards and retarded.

Regards
DL

[Immanuel Can]

Go, have your universal medical care...just leave me & mine alone to try sumthin' else.

I'm not sure I want it.

I'm not sure I can go without it.

But it's not good...not in its existing form. It's perhaps, at most, the modest "best" of a very bad deal.

But I'll tell you one thing: if I were in a country that didn't have it, I'd take a very hard look at the system I was thinking of installing, before I dared to try. It's extremely complex, and can go savagely wrong in many, many ways.

[henry quirk]

"I'd take a very hard look at the system I was thinking of installing"

Ultimately it'll be a mix of different systems. GIA will get his universal whatsis ('cept it won't be 'universal' cause it'll be voluntary and he'll just have to accept that some folks [like me] aren't under thumb).

Here: we have fifty 'labs' (and within each, multiple 'lab spaces') to try a whole whack of different things. What we currently lack is the courage to try idiosyncratic, local solutions and abandon the national 'one-size-fits-all' model.