LiG -- wouldn't you actually save $20? Because you are actually paying $580/mo right now, not $500.
Also, my family history here in America is rife with mal-practice, including the death of my great-grandmother in 1967 due to inexpert and unnecessary surgery to remove, of all things, a small chicken bone stuck in her throat that was bugging her (she was not choking), and my grandmother, who had 9" of her colon mistakenly removed by a doctor who was supposed to be only removing a small part of her intestinal tract (and has suffered from chronic malnutrition ever since).
To me, the greatest emblamatic example of a bad system of healthcare coverage in this country is that of one of my good friends. She became unexpectedly pregnant while in grad school, with her boyfriend of 3 years. Unfortunately, they had been post-poning marriage until she was done with grad school and they had the money to pay for it. She was pregnant with twins, and at her age this automatically landed her in the "high-risk" category. She only had the lowest form of health insurance -- the "emergency only" kind -- considering that she was in grad school, had no money, and just wanted to be on the safe side. Once pregnant, she was considered an existing high-risk condition and could not get coverage ANYWHERE. Even if she had married her boyfriend right away, his insurance also said it would refuse her. As she happened to live in New Orleans, and this was just after Katrina when many hospitals and clinics had been shut down (and STILL HAVEN'T REOPENED), she was thrown into the medicare system with everybody else and had to drive an hour to the closest still-operating clinic and wait in line in a standing-room-only waiting room (no kidding) for FOUR HOURS for ultrasounds required every two weeks. I am not making this up. How's that for a third-world system?
Again, however, jump and LiG's arguments are true--you have to look at the overall system as a whole. To me, also, one of the greatest arguments for universal government-provided care is that many (most?) doctors support it. I'll look up the statistic.
what the f*** is going on, how'd we get to page 251 already. People back to work you are making it harder and harder to do these kitchen details. Sigh!!
LiG, your argument is making sense, and Manta, I think your math is correct. Do Doctors really support it? I hadn't heard that. Is it because they could all become 'private practice' and more money would go directly to them? How would we insure that quality wouldn't suffer?
I really like that puzzle, at least I think its a puzzle.
what i don't understand about healthcare is why it is attached to employers. laszlo and felix could have exactly the same job, the same duties, the same title but because they have different employers could have very different and inequatable healthcare insurance. iz f'd up.
Vado, I'd aggree with that statement. What if we all just bought into plans on our own, and cut the employer out? I'm sure the healthcare through employer came as a way to provide incentive for potential hirees, without raising the wage.
but that would result in a lot fewer people being covered. My employer sure doesn't pay me enough to pay for healthcare on my own, and you couldn't mandate that employers raise wages to compensate for the fact that they are no longer providing health coverage: the most you could do was raise the minimum wage, which would once again screw everybody above it.
I first heard about this from a client who is a doctor in a large teaching city hospital. This doctor told us that year by year by year she had to fill out more and more and more paperwork from insurance companies just to get reimbursed for the work she was doing, and she was becoming increasingly embroiled in grey-area insurance fights between insurer and patient and consequently felt like she had less and less time to actually focus on patients. (Apparently the level of paperwork required is maddening.) Imagine if every decision you made during your workday was challenged via massive amounts of paperwork by a person whose sole job, 40 hours a week, is to sift through YOUR paperwork and find errors and things to challenge you on? Constantly? It's a system that produces a constant waste of time on everyone's part. Then I started hearing from friends who are medical residents that they are learning that they have to consider the insurance payment angle when they make health-impacting decisions for their patients, and they feel hampered in being able to give the best care and decisions for each patient.
Is it because they could all become 'private practice' and more money would go directly to them?
Oddly enough Sarah most evidence points to doctors' salaries probably going down a bit under a national health plan. But apparently they don't mind the trade, or 59% of them don't.
Interesting question of why health insurance was initially begun as a provision for salaried employees... I'd like to look that up, I'm curious now.
manta, that makes sense. I know I couldn't reschedule Abe's 9mo appointment for the week before he turned 9mo. because insurance won't always pay for the Xmo appt unless they are Xmo old. I did find that odd.
Yeah, that reminds me of one of the most annoying things I deal with regarding insurance... I'm on birth control, and you have to get a new pack or whatever every month. Obviously I have been taking this medication for years and WILL be taking it for years, without ever changing it. However my insurance won't let me purchase a month's refill until the exact day that the previous month's supply ran out -- so if I happen to be stopping by CVS say, a few days earlier than that, I can't get the damn prescription. Nor can I order it in advance, say, a year at a time, which would be phenomenally useful.
This is also slightly dangerous as there are a few rare occasions when I have accidently left the thing of pills at my parents house or wherever I might be travelling (or temporarily misplaced it) and, because of their 1-at-a-time rule, I can't keep another set of pills in reserve to take in the meanwhile. As you have to take one every single day to maintain efficacy, not being able to have any backup on hand is a real killer.
manta, I've run into that issue as well. In fact, if in the instructions on the kind I used to take, they specifically mentioned that you should keep an extra pack around just in case you screwed up two days in a row and had to start the month over. But will insurance companies allow you to follow the clearly written advice? No!
busy day between the MN AIA expo, working on a proposal, a policy conference call, and planning a two day client visit.
wow what a great health care discussion. my 2 cents is we must eliminate the for-profit motives of the insurance companies as this gives them the incentive to deny coverage/care as much as possible. Managing health should be a not-for-profit exercise that focuses on preventative health.
People were handing out those fake NYT papers in Manhattan today as well. Apparently it's the work of [url=http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/12/2008-11-12_fake_new_york_times_announces_iraq_war_e.htmlthe Yes Men[/url].
SH - regarding buying your own health insurance plan. Individual health insurance is actually more expensive than if you get a group rate. The bigger the group, the better the rate. For instance, large corporations spend less per person than say the mom and pop company down the street. It sucks and was one of the biggest reasons why I screamed at the TV several times during the presidential debates.
What really irks me is listening to the health insurance providers blame the doctors for the rise in insurance rates. Next time you get your Explanation of Benefits in the mail after you've been to the doctor, take a look at how much the doctor is actually getting paid fore services he/she provided. In some cases it's truly appalling. Few doctors these days are making the big bucks they used to. Not only do they have to employ a bigger staff just to manage all the bullshit loops the insurance companies make them jump through, but their liability and malpractice insurance has skyrocketed. My father has a friend who used to be an OBGYN in Ohio. He left the "business" because he could no longer afford the $250,000/year liability insurance he was required to have. Now that's just sad. This is actually a big reason why you see more and more doctors coming together to work in group practices. They would be able to stay in business if they were on their own.
I could go on and on. I actually worked in my father's dental practice while I was back and school and dealt with all the insurance related issues. I can atest at how ridiculous some of the things doctors have to do in order to get paid. I no longer bitch about how much the doctors charge, I bitch about how much the fucking insurance companies raking in.
I rank HMOs in about the same circle of hell as Rush Limbaugh, which is to say I wish they would succumb to natural selection as they should have a long time ago.
why do guys dislike insurance companies so much when if you simply took better care of yourselves then you wouldn't have these problems? really, most of you sound like total losers right now & i can't believe you'd have the selfishness to bring down the more successful classes of americans with your desperate rationalization for socialism. wow, just wow.
Not to fill TC with something so serious at health care, but I have some more questions.
Currently, insurance will pay for some things that I would consider 'electable' like viagra, some cosmetic procedures, some weight loss proceedures. How would a national coverage system work those things out. I would say that breast enlargement is electable, but breast reduction might not be. If you are overweight by only 100 pounds, maybe you dont NEED lap-ban, but if you're 400 pounds over, maybe you do. See what I'm asking? How do we decide what is covered and what isn't? And how do we insure quallity without compitition of the free-market scenario? Are these thoughts out of line?
SH - I'm pretty sure weight loss surgery is reviewed on a case by case basis, as is "reconstructive" surgery. As for the Viagra issue, I have no clue, but there are people out there that can argue the same about oral contraceptives; that it is an elective prescription to take when clearly, in some cases it is not.
Sarah, almost everything you mentioned above is currently elective except Viagra (go figure). With a national coverage system more information would be available about health care and prevention, which is to say, perhaps less people would need lap band surgery because less people would be that fat because they would have been getting that information in the first place. With the current system it is in the best interest of doctors (and HMOs) if we stay sick or get sicker because that's the best way for them to get paid.
Another thing, with a national health care system, no one can be denied coverage for preexisting conditions. Did you know that pregnant women can be denied health care coverage in some places because their pregnancy is a "pre-existing condition"? Do you agree that it might be nice to have a health care system that covers healthy people AND pregnant women, as well as others who really need the coverage?
DubK - Your statement concerning it is in the best interest of doctors to keep people sick really rubs me the wrong way. Of the doctors I personally know, none of them want people to be sick and actually would like to see major reform in the national health care system (going the route of nationalization). They are doing it to help people. Even with preventative programs there are still going to be people out there that get sick not matter what. Stop feeding into what the insurance companies keep telling you. Most doctors don't go into the business to get rich. If that were the case I'm sure they'd go a much, much easier route.
Big deal heavy hitter party at our house tonight. Food's all prepped and I'm about to descend into an hour of vacuuming.
I bought some tequila for a recipe and on a whim bought a bottle of Kahlua as well. The liquor store clerk helpfully told me the two mix together pretty well, which I'd never heard of before. I'll be sure to dig up the delightfully misspelled hammerred thread later tonight.
I don't think you should be denied coverage for pregnancy, but I also understand the insurance companies side on that one. Its purely proffit.
I also don't think people will no longer be fat because information is suddenly out there about how to keep from getting fat. But, I do get your point. If people knew that lead caused people to go crazy, get sick and die, then they wouldn't have put it in make-up and such.
I am certainly more open now than I was about a nationalised system. LiG's medicaid/medicare example makes some sense. But doesn't medicaid/medicare suck? I would definately say that its not fair to me, or others that my cousins can pop out 6 kids, all on my dime, and I am still stuck paying for my own popping.
Man, everybodies going to awesome parties tonight except me! Husband has a Grande-Opening at this High End shop he's working at now, where there will be rivers of liquor, and I have to go home and play mom. He didn't know I was invited until last night. Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn.
pregnancy should not be covered by any health care plan as it is an entirely preventable condition. if you must have children then you should pay for them out of your own pocket.
****melt, I know that not ALL doctors think that people being sick is a good thing. I would hope that most of them are in the business because they want to help people. But what of the report that there is an increase in obstetrics in C-sections, but not for medical reasons ... researchers dug deeper and found that some OB-GYNs were trying to encourage patients to have C-sections because they could be scheduled, unlike natural births. A scheduled C-section allowed doctors to, among other things, play golf more regularly. I wish I were making this up but I did read about it somewhere, for the life of me I cannot remember where.
I'm glad that all of the doctors YOU know are in the business for the right reasons. Unfortunately some doctors - not all, but some - encourage unnecessary procedures for the wrong reasons.
This is not what I think of HMOs though. I think people at all HMOs are evil and are trying to rip people off/kill people at all times. I wish I didn't think this but I do.
I kind of agree with puddles somewhat with the last statement. It is preventable, but social norms and mores as well as religion weigh heavily on it as well. If you had socialised healthcare we wouldn't be having this debate.
What I am most impressed by, having remembered much of the rhetoric spouted about socialism (even here on archinect) and the ugly parts of its past, is how it is being renewed and looked at objectively. There are good sides to it, things that have been adopted around much of the world with big benefits.
Okay I'm taking a nap, just came from a funeral (mum of a old school mate)
The push for C-sections has actually gone down in recent years. Read that/heard that somewhere. I think one of the reasons why the rate of c-sections has gone up in this country may be b/c OBGYNs are trying to prevent any possible malpractice suits that may occur from anything going wrong in delivery.
Remember a few bad apples spoils the bunch. I'd say the vast MAJORITY of doctors AREN'T in it for the money, especially these days (well maybe the plastic surgeons).
So I hope you won't mind if men in suits start lurking around here. It's not like I've posted often to the hammered thread or said anything that can be used against the president to be on the political threads. Do you really think that somebody will want to read all 251 pages of TC to find the silly/snarky items I've posted?
gastric bypass is certainly cheaper than all of the things that can happen if the person remains morbidly obese. type II diabetes is eliminated, heart disease is reduce, types of cancer are reduced, and many other life threatening disease are reduced.
in fact many people who are not obese are having gastric bypass in order to eliminate type II diabetes.
while many people here may think, THINK, it's a matter of personal responsibility, many here also don't know their ass from their elbow. i worked with a guy that thought all fat people should be round up, shot, and burned for fuel - his thinking was that might solve the energy and economic crisis.
you nor Gin, you nor I. Shoot the contents of my final year of grad school is enough to well...earn me a few strikes. I would want a job reviewing and cataloging said embarassing moments. The applicants must “please list all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate over the Internet.” It could hold me over with laughter for at least a decade I'm sure.
I want to go dinner tonight. Its restaurant week, I have no date and I'm sure the 30+ restaurants listed are booked out. Its funny for one week the culinary mafia lists a bunch of restaurants, everyone flocks to them completely ignoring the rest <- so much so that the other tend to close for a week.
president "hope & change" is clearly an amateur. a real president wouldn't bother asking most of that shit because he'd already have the NSA sifting through applicants information. that way he could find everybody's dirt & then spring it on them blackmail-style at a moment of political pressure when he most needed them to be on his side.
if president-elect keeps this up, vlad putin is going to own obama & the usa by the end of first term.
Beta, that made me laugh. I know it was wrong, but it was so unexpected.
And when I was talking about weight loss proceedures, I was referring to ones that are more cosmetic in nature. I have a aunt by marriage that got lap-ban in an effort to keep her roving husband at home. Obviously, its a case by case decision.
Thread Central
LiG -- wouldn't you actually save $20? Because you are actually paying $580/mo right now, not $500.
Also, my family history here in America is rife with mal-practice, including the death of my great-grandmother in 1967 due to inexpert and unnecessary surgery to remove, of all things, a small chicken bone stuck in her throat that was bugging her (she was not choking), and my grandmother, who had 9" of her colon mistakenly removed by a doctor who was supposed to be only removing a small part of her intestinal tract (and has suffered from chronic malnutrition ever since).
To me, the greatest emblamatic example of a bad system of healthcare coverage in this country is that of one of my good friends. She became unexpectedly pregnant while in grad school, with her boyfriend of 3 years. Unfortunately, they had been post-poning marriage until she was done with grad school and they had the money to pay for it. She was pregnant with twins, and at her age this automatically landed her in the "high-risk" category. She only had the lowest form of health insurance -- the "emergency only" kind -- considering that she was in grad school, had no money, and just wanted to be on the safe side. Once pregnant, she was considered an existing high-risk condition and could not get coverage ANYWHERE. Even if she had married her boyfriend right away, his insurance also said it would refuse her. As she happened to live in New Orleans, and this was just after Katrina when many hospitals and clinics had been shut down (and STILL HAVEN'T REOPENED), she was thrown into the medicare system with everybody else and had to drive an hour to the closest still-operating clinic and wait in line in a standing-room-only waiting room (no kidding) for FOUR HOURS for ultrasounds required every two weeks. I am not making this up. How's that for a third-world system?
Again, however, jump and LiG's arguments are true--you have to look at the overall system as a whole. To me, also, one of the greatest arguments for universal government-provided care is that many (most?) doctors support it. I'll look up the statistic.
Good point, mantaray.
what the f*** is going on, how'd we get to page 251 already. People back to work you are making it harder and harder to do these kitchen details. Sigh!!
People care about restaurants because that is information that is important to them.
LiG, your argument is making sense, and Manta, I think your math is correct. Do Doctors really support it? I hadn't heard that. Is it because they could all become 'private practice' and more money would go directly to them? How would we insure that quality wouldn't suffer?
I really like that puzzle, at least I think its a puzzle.
Looks like a puzzle to me.
what i don't understand about healthcare is why it is attached to employers. laszlo and felix could have exactly the same job, the same duties, the same title but because they have different employers could have very different and inequatable healthcare insurance. iz f'd up.
Vado, I'd aggree with that statement. What if we all just bought into plans on our own, and cut the employer out? I'm sure the healthcare through employer came as a way to provide incentive for potential hirees, without raising the wage.
but that would result in a lot fewer people being covered. My employer sure doesn't pay me enough to pay for healthcare on my own, and you couldn't mandate that employers raise wages to compensate for the fact that they are no longer providing health coverage: the most you could do was raise the minimum wage, which would once again screw everybody above it.
I first heard about this from a client who is a doctor in a large teaching city hospital. This doctor told us that year by year by year she had to fill out more and more and more paperwork from insurance companies just to get reimbursed for the work she was doing, and she was becoming increasingly embroiled in grey-area insurance fights between insurer and patient and consequently felt like she had less and less time to actually focus on patients. (Apparently the level of paperwork required is maddening.) Imagine if every decision you made during your workday was challenged via massive amounts of paperwork by a person whose sole job, 40 hours a week, is to sift through YOUR paperwork and find errors and things to challenge you on? Constantly? It's a system that produces a constant waste of time on everyone's part. Then I started hearing from friends who are medical residents that they are learning that they have to consider the insurance payment angle when they make health-impacting decisions for their patients, and they feel hampered in being able to give the best care and decisions for each patient.
These sentiments are apparently echoed by the Physicians for a National Program.
It's an interesting question...
Oddly enough Sarah most evidence points to doctors' salaries probably going down a bit under a national health plan. But apparently they don't mind the trade, or 59% of them don't.
Interesting question of why health insurance was initially begun as a provision for salaried employees... I'd like to look that up, I'm curious now.
manta, that makes sense. I know I couldn't reschedule Abe's 9mo appointment for the week before he turned 9mo. because insurance won't always pay for the Xmo appt unless they are Xmo old. I did find that odd.
Yeah, that reminds me of one of the most annoying things I deal with regarding insurance... I'm on birth control, and you have to get a new pack or whatever every month. Obviously I have been taking this medication for years and WILL be taking it for years, without ever changing it. However my insurance won't let me purchase a month's refill until the exact day that the previous month's supply ran out -- so if I happen to be stopping by CVS say, a few days earlier than that, I can't get the damn prescription. Nor can I order it in advance, say, a year at a time, which would be phenomenally useful.
This is also slightly dangerous as there are a few rare occasions when I have accidently left the thing of pills at my parents house or wherever I might be travelling (or temporarily misplaced it) and, because of their 1-at-a-time rule, I can't keep another set of pills in reserve to take in the meanwhile. As you have to take one every single day to maintain efficacy, not being able to have any backup on hand is a real killer.
manta, I've run into that issue as well. In fact, if in the instructions on the kind I used to take, they specifically mentioned that you should keep an extra pack around just in case you screwed up two days in a row and had to start the month over. But will insurance companies allow you to follow the clearly written advice? No!
busy day between the MN AIA expo, working on a proposal, a policy conference call, and planning a two day client visit.
wow what a great health care discussion. my 2 cents is we must eliminate the for-profit motives of the insurance companies as this gives them the incentive to deny coverage/care as much as possible. Managing health should be a not-for-profit exercise that focuses on preventative health.
Great conversation, but I just glazed over it, because this afternoon I discovered that national health care is going to happen ... by next July!
July 4, 2009
This is so cool. I should be getting work done. Ah well.
People were handing out those fake NYT papers in Manhattan today as well. Apparently it's the work of [url=http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/12/2008-11-12_fake_new_york_times_announces_iraq_war_e.htmlthe Yes Men[/url].
Crap.
The Yes Men
SH - regarding buying your own health insurance plan. Individual health insurance is actually more expensive than if you get a group rate. The bigger the group, the better the rate. For instance, large corporations spend less per person than say the mom and pop company down the street. It sucks and was one of the biggest reasons why I screamed at the TV several times during the presidential debates.
What really irks me is listening to the health insurance providers blame the doctors for the rise in insurance rates. Next time you get your Explanation of Benefits in the mail after you've been to the doctor, take a look at how much the doctor is actually getting paid fore services he/she provided. In some cases it's truly appalling. Few doctors these days are making the big bucks they used to. Not only do they have to employ a bigger staff just to manage all the bullshit loops the insurance companies make them jump through, but their liability and malpractice insurance has skyrocketed. My father has a friend who used to be an OBGYN in Ohio. He left the "business" because he could no longer afford the $250,000/year liability insurance he was required to have. Now that's just sad. This is actually a big reason why you see more and more doctors coming together to work in group practices. They would be able to stay in business if they were on their own.
I could go on and on. I actually worked in my father's dental practice while I was back and school and dealt with all the insurance related issues. I can atest at how ridiculous some of the things doctors have to do in order to get paid. I no longer bitch about how much the doctors charge, I bitch about how much the fucking insurance companies raking in.
ARGH!!!!
I rank HMOs in about the same circle of hell as Rush Limbaugh, which is to say I wish they would succumb to natural selection as they should have a long time ago.
why do guys dislike insurance companies so much when if you simply took better care of yourselves then you wouldn't have these problems? really, most of you sound like total losers right now & i can't believe you'd have the selfishness to bring down the more successful classes of americans with your desperate rationalization for socialism. wow, just wow.
take a pill puddles!
puddles = Steven Colbert?
LOL WonderK!!!
In other news. It's dreary and rainy today but not too cold. November is officially upon us in the Ohio River Valley.
its hard to hold a candle
in the cold november rain.
gag.
Hi all,
I am semi-sick today and it began yesterday.
Nothing like a drippy nose.
Ahh the beginings of winter.
Puddles =Stevn Colbert...Hahahahah!!!!
Not to fill TC with something so serious at health care, but I have some more questions.
Currently, insurance will pay for some things that I would consider 'electable' like viagra, some cosmetic procedures, some weight loss proceedures. How would a national coverage system work those things out. I would say that breast enlargement is electable, but breast reduction might not be. If you are overweight by only 100 pounds, maybe you dont NEED lap-ban, but if you're 400 pounds over, maybe you do. See what I'm asking? How do we decide what is covered and what isn't? And how do we insure quallity without compitition of the free-market scenario? Are these thoughts out of line?
Oh, and of course, good morning.
SH - I'm pretty sure weight loss surgery is reviewed on a case by case basis, as is "reconstructive" surgery. As for the Viagra issue, I have no clue, but there are people out there that can argue the same about oral contraceptives; that it is an elective prescription to take when clearly, in some cases it is not.
my name is not steven colbert.
lately i've been giving some thought to becoming a monk. anybody know which sect it is that gets to live at corb's la tourrette?
Sarah, almost everything you mentioned above is currently elective except Viagra (go figure). With a national coverage system more information would be available about health care and prevention, which is to say, perhaps less people would need lap band surgery because less people would be that fat because they would have been getting that information in the first place. With the current system it is in the best interest of doctors (and HMOs) if we stay sick or get sicker because that's the best way for them to get paid.
Another thing, with a national health care system, no one can be denied coverage for preexisting conditions. Did you know that pregnant women can be denied health care coverage in some places because their pregnancy is a "pre-existing condition"? Do you agree that it might be nice to have a health care system that covers healthy people AND pregnant women, as well as others who really need the coverage?
DubK - Your statement concerning it is in the best interest of doctors to keep people sick really rubs me the wrong way. Of the doctors I personally know, none of them want people to be sick and actually would like to see major reform in the national health care system (going the route of nationalization). They are doing it to help people. Even with preventative programs there are still going to be people out there that get sick not matter what. Stop feeding into what the insurance companies keep telling you. Most doctors don't go into the business to get rich. If that were the case I'm sure they'd go a much, much easier route.
Big deal heavy hitter party at our house tonight. Food's all prepped and I'm about to descend into an hour of vacuuming.
I bought some tequila for a recipe and on a whim bought a bottle of Kahlua as well. The liquor store clerk helpfully told me the two mix together pretty well, which I'd never heard of before. I'll be sure to dig up the delightfully misspelled hammerred thread later tonight.
Hope everyone's having a good day.
I don't think you should be denied coverage for pregnancy, but I also understand the insurance companies side on that one. Its purely proffit.
I also don't think people will no longer be fat because information is suddenly out there about how to keep from getting fat. But, I do get your point. If people knew that lead caused people to go crazy, get sick and die, then they wouldn't have put it in make-up and such.
I am certainly more open now than I was about a nationalised system. LiG's medicaid/medicare example makes some sense. But doesn't medicaid/medicare suck? I would definately say that its not fair to me, or others that my cousins can pop out 6 kids, all on my dime, and I am still stuck paying for my own popping.
Man, everybodies going to awesome parties tonight except me! Husband has a Grande-Opening at this High End shop he's working at now, where there will be rivers of liquor, and I have to go home and play mom. He didn't know I was invited until last night. Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn.
pregnancy should not be covered by any health care plan as it is an entirely preventable condition. if you must have children then you should pay for them out of your own pocket.
****melt, I know that not ALL doctors think that people being sick is a good thing. I would hope that most of them are in the business because they want to help people. But what of the report that there is an increase in obstetrics in C-sections, but not for medical reasons ... researchers dug deeper and found that some OB-GYNs were trying to encourage patients to have C-sections because they could be scheduled, unlike natural births. A scheduled C-section allowed doctors to, among other things, play golf more regularly. I wish I were making this up but I did read about it somewhere, for the life of me I cannot remember where.
I'm glad that all of the doctors YOU know are in the business for the right reasons. Unfortunately some doctors - not all, but some - encourage unnecessary procedures for the wrong reasons.
This is not what I think of HMOs though. I think people at all HMOs are evil and are trying to rip people off/kill people at all times. I wish I didn't think this but I do.
I hate it when I do that. Oh well. Hi gang.
puddles, do you also not see color, and do you think that bears are the greatest threat to America?
I kind of agree with puddles somewhat with the last statement. It is preventable, but social norms and mores as well as religion weigh heavily on it as well. If you had socialised healthcare we wouldn't be having this debate.
What I am most impressed by, having remembered much of the rhetoric spouted about socialism (even here on archinect) and the ugly parts of its past, is how it is being renewed and looked at objectively. There are good sides to it, things that have been adopted around much of the world with big benefits.
Okay I'm taking a nap, just came from a funeral (mum of a old school mate)
I am not going to a cool party tonight.
I wish i was...
Although i feel sick i feel like partying a bit.
The push for C-sections has actually gone down in recent years. Read that/heard that somewhere. I think one of the reasons why the rate of c-sections has gone up in this country may be b/c OBGYNs are trying to prevent any possible malpractice suits that may occur from anything going wrong in delivery.
Remember a few bad apples spoils the bunch. I'd say the vast MAJORITY of doctors AREN'T in it for the money, especially these days (well maybe the plastic surgeons).
I just learned that folks applying for top posts in the Obama administration will need to disclose all potentially embarrassing web posts they ever made.
So I hope you won't mind if men in suits start lurking around here. It's not like I've posted often to the hammered thread or said anything that can be used against the president to be on the political threads. Do you really think that somebody will want to read all 251 pages of TC to find the silly/snarky items I've posted?
Damn... Guess I won't be working for Obama, then.
gastric bypass is certainly cheaper than all of the things that can happen if the person remains morbidly obese. type II diabetes is eliminated, heart disease is reduce, types of cancer are reduced, and many other life threatening disease are reduced.
in fact many people who are not obese are having gastric bypass in order to eliminate type II diabetes.
while many people here may think, THINK, it's a matter of personal responsibility, many here also don't know their ass from their elbow. i worked with a guy that thought all fat people should be round up, shot, and burned for fuel - his thinking was that might solve the energy and economic crisis.
So am I the only one beginning to wonder what the economy would do if the news makers went away?
you nor Gin, you nor I. Shoot the contents of my final year of grad school is enough to well...earn me a few strikes. I would want a job reviewing and cataloging said embarassing moments. The applicants must “please list all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate over the Internet.” It could hold me over with laughter for at least a decade I'm sure.
I want to go dinner tonight. Its restaurant week, I have no date and I'm sure the 30+ restaurants listed are booked out. Its funny for one week the culinary mafia lists a bunch of restaurants, everyone flocks to them completely ignoring the rest <- so much so that the other tend to close for a week.
president "hope & change" is clearly an amateur. a real president wouldn't bother asking most of that shit because he'd already have the NSA sifting through applicants information. that way he could find everybody's dirt & then spring it on them blackmail-style at a moment of political pressure when he most needed them to be on his side.
if president-elect keeps this up, vlad putin is going to own obama & the usa by the end of first term.
goodness tk, that's a terrible thought! I think I would maybe just disclose my other identity and 'forget' about this one...
beta has said friend been shot yet?
Beta, that made me laugh. I know it was wrong, but it was so unexpected.
And when I was talking about weight loss proceedures, I was referring to ones that are more cosmetic in nature. I have a aunt by marriage that got lap-ban in an effort to keep her roving husband at home. Obviously, its a case by case decision.
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