Important Anniversary.

[Poke John I]

Forty-four years ago this month, July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law an act creating Medicare.

The first Medicare membership card was issued to former President Harry S. Truman.

At the time, the nay-sayers were calling it "socialized medicine." The fear mongers said people would not be able to choose their doctors, medical care would be rationed, and elderly beneficiaries would be denied
treatment --- effectively being euthanized.

I paid into that system for the remainder of my working years. When I turned 65, I became a beneficiary.

If this is socialized medicine, we need more of it!

I'm a prostate cancer survivor (9 years) , my wife is a double breast cancer survivor (12 years), and a colon cancer survivor (5 years). Our individual family private insurance policy, was jacked-up year after year to where it exceeded my retirement income and that was with $1,500 per year deductible for each individual. The private insurance company recognized that we really needed health
insurance and instead of providing it, they convieniently forced us out. We went two years without any health insurance because we could not afford it and I was not old enough to qualify for Medicare. Think about how scary it is to be a cancer survivor and not have any health insurance. You feel like the "Hammer" could drop any day and you would not be able to get any kind of treatment. That is scary!

Unfortunately, some of you, mostly Republican,
nay-sayers will have similar family health problems as you age. However, I would not wish that on any family. I hope Obama is able to pass an effective and affordable form of health insurance and care for all U.S. Citizens only. I would not want anyone to have to go through what we have.

[WyomingOSUAlum]

Glad you beat it and here's to your continued good health!

Now how the hell are we gonna pay for all this?

[WyomingOSUAlum]

Wait, I've got an idea! We can raid the Social Security trust fund. There's LOTS of money there, right?

[WyomingOSUAlum]

For those who haven't quit smoking, they could bring in their old Iron Lung machines, sort of a "cash for clunkers" program to jump start the new socialized medicine program! Medicare needs a stimulus!

[WyomingOSUAlum]

And the coolest part is that I'll be dead when my kids have to start paying for all this debt that we ran up! Boy, are they going to be pissed at us when they start figuring all THAT out !!!! HA! TOO LATE !!!!! THEY'RE SCREWED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JimBob]

Don't stop now; you're on a roll!:cool-smiley-027:

[Poke John I]

The U.S.A. spends twice as much as any other Nation per capita on Health Care. Our average life time expectancy is only about 20th in the World. Our system has evolved into numerous very greedy businesses. More than adequate money is now being spent but not very efficiently. If you ran a business and found out your purchasing dept. was spending twice as much as your competition for a inferior product, you would investigate and heads would roll. Insurance companies, pharmacutical companies, doctors, and other medical suppliers have made our overall system very inefficient. Some people are going to have to make less money and some probably cut out of the system altogether. If the present system keeps going and prices keep rising as in the past, many more people will be without health insurance or health care. I don't claim to have all the answers but the current system has to change.

Medicare is working and has helped control some costs. However, more costs will probably need to be controlled in the future.

[WyomingOSUAlum]

PJ,

Again, I'm glad you licked it. My mother had breast cancer just last year. So far, so good!



If you ran a business and found out your purchasing dept. was spending twice as much as your competition for a inferior product, you would investigate and heads would roll. Insurance companies, pharmacutical companies, doctors, and other medical suppliers have made our overall system very inefficient.



But comparing the federal government to a private enterprise is the worst idea EVER to advance your side of the argument. If the federal government was a corporation, it would have been bankrupt decades ago and the people in charge would have been imprisoned.

Our politicians in Washington have lied to us repeatedly. They have played with our money like it's one big shell game, robbing Peter to pay Paul and then borrowing more money that nobody will ever repay. They are endangering our capitalist system, our way of life and standard of living.

I remember seeing my last Social Security statement. Very clearly printed on it was a warning that the system was broke and would need to be fixed in the future in order to continue paying benefits.

So what's the answer? Well, if you're a politician in Washington, you borrow billions upon billions of dollars and shift it from one account into another and declare the problem has been fixed. Meanwhile, you ignore the debt that you just incurred to "fix" the problem.

I'm glad you're healthy. But about the last thing I want to see is that pack of a-holes to be given the authority to run things into the ground even more.

[jakeman]

There are people in this country without health insurance, therefore they can't get everyday preventative care. That is vastly different than being without any health care.

You don't need to mess with the system of actual care, and it would be much cheaper, to have a health insurance plan provided by the government on an income based fee structure for those currently without health insurance. If you had an opportunity to have insurance otherwise, thru your employer for example, you would not be eligible. It shouldn't be free, sorta like Section 8 housing, but it should be affordable if it was based on income.

None of that would require the government to be involved in any health care decisions, except as an insurance provider, which happens with private insurance now. There is NO reason for the government, in a free society, to be making decisions about actual health care & treatment.

This is a classic example of give them an inch an they will take a mile. Obama & his far left supporters on this issue want the government to be that involved because they have a socialist mind set & belief system.

If you can't understand that government run health care, not insurance, is a socalist program that would be bad for everyone in this country then I'm not sure what to say to you.

[jakeman]

Insurance companies, pharmacutical companies, doctors, and other medical suppliers have made our overall system the envy of the planet. People with money from all over the world come to this country because they know the best and brightest doctors practice here and the best medical facilities in the World are located within the boarders of this country.

There, thats a more realistic statement.

You don't need government involvement in care decisions to address the problem of those without health insurance.

[jakeman]

I have a business associate that owns a labor force company. She has some "recovering" bums, some guys who are down on their luck, and a few neer do wells.

On the way to a job site one morning a group of her guys stopped for coffee at a Loves in Weatherford. One cat stepped out of the van, had a seizure, and fell over and cracked his skull open on the curb.

He got an ambulance ride to the Weatherford hospital, a chopper ride to Baptist in OKC, and a 4 week stay in ICU, then a 6 week stay in a semi-private room, and then months of rehabilitation & physical therapy so he could go back to work as a day laborer. Which he did.

Workman's comp wouldn't cover it, because she didn't pay them windshield time to and from jobs, just actual working hours on the job site, because thats what the General Contractors pay. So, he wasn't really "at" work. This guy ain't got a lick of insurance, and barely has two nickles to rub together, and he got the same care I would have gotten if I had been similarly injured, and I got pretty good insurance. In fact, he might have gotten better care, because his doctors were making all of his care decisions, without an insurance company saying, "hey, we ain't gonna pay for all that, send that dude home".

This guy didn't have to pay even one of his two nickels. He got a bill, but my friend called the hospital on his behalf, and less than 120 days after he was discharged his account was written off to bad debt, while he was still going to physical therapy. And that is why my insurance company has to pay 80% of the aspirin that cost 87 bucks, and I get to pay the remaining 20%. The hospital has to operate in the black, and I want them to make a profit, because I want really smart people to have the opportunity to get rich in the medical field because I want those really smart people working on my medical issues when I have them. I want medical supply companies to have the incentive to make piles of money to come up with new, less invasive surgical techniques like laparoscopic surgery so they don't have to cut me open like a trout to take out my gall bladder. I want pharmaceutical companies to have the opportunity to make boat loads of cash, more money than a Columbian drug lord could count, to come up with more effective cancer drugs so people in my family and my close friends will quit dying from that f^#$ing disease. These things will only happen in a free enterprise system.

So when people tell me, in effect that they don't want these things, I just shake my head, and then I get mad. Really, really mad. Because you are campaigning for and supporting something that will make life for my loved ones worse. If I can't convince you of the error of your ways, I'll do everything in my power to stop you. The fact that the same elected buffoons that want to force this on the "poor stupid populace that don't know whats best for them" want nothing to do with this medical plan should be all you need to know.

What this is going to be is equal health care for everyone, but it won't be equal because everyone has been lifted up to the highest standard. It will be equal because everyone will have the same crappy level of care, and that level will be lower than the lowest levels we have now, and everyone will suffer. I'm not near as concerned about the cost as I am the government making helath care decisions for it's citizens.

[legelegel]

The hospital has to operate in the black, and I want them to make a profit, because I want really smart people to have the opportunity to get rich in the medical field because I want those really smart people working on my medical issues when I have them. I want medical supply companies to have the incentive to make piles of money to come up with new, less invasive surgical techniques like laparoscopic surgery so they don't have to cut me open like a trout to take out my gall bladder. I want pharmaceutical companies to have the opportunity to make boat loads of cash, more money than a Columbian drug lord could count, to come up with more effective cancer drugs so people in my family and my close friends will quit dying from that f^#$ing disease. These things will only happen in a free enterprise system.

What this is going to be is equal health care for everyone, but it won't be equal because everyone has been lifted up to the highest standard. It will be equal because everyone will have the same crappy level of care, and that level will be lower than the lowest levels we have now, and everyone will suffer. I'm not near as concerned about the cost as I am the government making helath care decisions for it's citizens.

Hear, hear. Very, very good, Jakeman.

Maybe our only problem is the state of the health care insurance industry.

Should we be able to go across state lines to buy health insurance like we can auto insurance? What are the possible pitfalls in being able do this? Should health insurance products be compared to auto insurance products? Is it really that simple to make health insurance more competitive?

[FloridaPoke]

I think medicare is absolutely necessary. I think it is absolutely necessary to figure out a way to cover those in need and without coverage.

What I don't get is why negatively impact all 300 million citizens' care because 30-40 million need attention?

The answer is simple. A socialized grab at the entire system. Otherwise, Medicare would be extended to cover the non-covered and we'd be done with it.

[jakeman]

The answer is simple. A socialized grab at the entire system. Otherwise, Medicare would be extended to cover the non-covered and we'd be done with it.

And there you have it.

[AnniePokely]

Workman's comp wouldn't cover it, because she didn't pay them windshield time to and from jobs, just actual working hours on the job site, because thats what the General Contractors pay. So, he wasn't really "at" work. This guy ain't got a lick of insurance, and barely has two nickles to rub together, and he got the same care I would have gotten if I had been similarly injured, and I got pretty good insurance. In fact, he might have gotten better care, because his doctors were making all of his care decisions, without an insurance company saying, "hey, we ain't gonna pay for all that, send that dude home".



My mom has a friend at her dialysis center who doesn't have two nickels to rub together. His wife (who takes care of him) was recently diagnosed with kidney cancer, and they can't find anyone who will treat her until she has insurance. Obviously, even if they COULD afford insurance, they wouldn't be able to get a thing done. Pre-existing condition. So, she lives with kidney cancer, while waiting to see if DHS and medicaid will help any at all.

So not everyone without insurance gets a free ride.

[jakeman]

Yeah, I know. Which is why everyone should have "insurance" or some other form of medical insurance coverage. That has nothing to do with involving the government in "medical care" decisions.

I'm of the belief, as are many others, that the answer lies in having the government extend an affordable insurance plan to those 40 million or so without insurance. I believe this would be much cheaper to the taxpayer, and would probably cause overall "medical care" costs to drop, while not affecting the "medical care" that the rest of the country currently enjoys.

I'd be adamantly for a government provided insurance plan, with a fee structure or premium based on income. I'm hopeful that is what will eventually happen here. I'm hopeful what the left has asked for is the stars, hoping to reach the moon, and a compromise will be reached that will leave care decisions in the hands of the patients and their physicians.

Without the noncollectable accounts that have to be made up by those that can pay, and their private insurance providers, the total cost of doing business would most certainly fall.

[legelegel]

Yeah, I know. Which is why everyone should have "insurance" or some other form of medical insurance coverage. That has nothing to do with involving the government in "medical care" decisions.

I'm of the belief, as are many others, that the answer lies in having the government extend an affordable insurance plan to those 40 million or so without insurance. I believe this would be much cheaper to the taxpayer, and would probably cause overall "medical care" costs to drop, while not affecting the "medical care" that the rest of the country currently enjoys.

I'd be adamantly for a government provided insurance plan, with a fee structure or premium based on income. I'm hopeful that is what will eventually happen here. I'm hopeful what the left has asked for is the stars, hoping to reach the moon, and a compromise will be reached that will leave care decisions in the hands of the patients and their physicians.

Without the noncollectable accounts that have to be made up by those that can pay, and their private insurance providers, the total cost of doing business would most certainly fall.

Very good again, Jakeman. Actually it's all very good.

[jakeman]

This congressman says some of the things I've been saying, only he says it much more eloquently.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G44NCvNDLfc&feature=player_embedded