Comments on: Basic Health Care Failure

By: Cowboy Diva

Cowboy Diva — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:54:16 +0000

Joyful Alternative,
I cannot speak to the case at hand, but I do know that where I lived in Texas, the one medical office in a town of 1200 did not accept Medicare or Medicaid patients because the practitioner did not not want to hassle with the paperwork; the next town was over 10 miles away (and that practice was essentially closed to new patients) and the nearest hospital with an ER was 45 miles away.
I realize these are issues that are mostly rural problems but they still point up other issues that universal healthcare may help to alleviate.

By: Bobsters

Bobsters — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:39:32 +0000

While healthcare is a big issue in America, I think we forget that insurance companies aren’t really designed to authorize and pay for every procedure we desire (and in worse cases, need). Because insurance IN GENERAL is a business, they have to turn a profit and unfortunately, the way to get at this profit is limit the amout of pay outs. (Steady stream of premiums in the door, slow stream of payments out the door.)
This fallacy results in additional problems, not just for consumers with healthcare, but also those without. Hospitals are stressed to “make ends meet” with limited payment available for covered services and NO payment from non-covered services (where liability returns to the patient). I think these cases definitely highlight the issue but don’t always speak to the root cause. We’ve got to do more activism to install additional regulation so that the amount of uninsured or underinsured does not increase.
Just a thought.

By: Joyful Alternative

Joyful Alternative — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:55:05 +0000

But why wasn’t this 68-year-old man covered by Medicare?