There are hundreds of permutations of a solution to provide true universal health care. All of them will be crippled if insurance companies are allowed to have as big a voice as they do in creating UHC solutions. And hell, at least Massachusetts is *trying.* Even if the present system doesn’t work out, there’ll be a lot learned.

Bob, The truth of “universal” health care in Massachusetts is that it is not true. I am one of the only physicians in my area who accepts the state health insurance. I actually pay to provide health care for these individuals. If no doctors accept this insurance, how does it provide health care to anyone?

It’s not that I don’t feel badly for people who have no coverage. I just don’t think that compassion automatically engenders financial responsiblilty.

Your comments remind me of Scrooge. In fact, from your tone and wording, everything you have said sounds a lot like this:

“If they’d rather die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population.”

‘They’ being all those people you feel so badly for without proper health care coverage. I mean cause hey, if they died faster, then you wouldn’t have to worry that you might have to pay seventy bucks for those much needed Prada glasses at some point due to a raise in your OOP cost to cover said less-than-people for basic health coverage.

Humbug on you and people who think like you. You’re POV sucks and it’s one of the reasons why I spent several decades watching people die because their insurance- yeah, real insurance- screwed around, delaying and denying, until there was nothing left to do. There may be a lot of good about America, but when so many believe, and pass on to their offspring, the ‘I’ve got mine, go fuck yourself’ attitude– well, it explains why the richest country in the world has a shit healthcare, education, justice, and transportation system. Why we aren’t even close to putting out kids who can compete with the east for jobs.

Yep, you sure got yours, Emmy. Until you don’t. /rant

Lack of UHC is one of the reasons that I won’t be moving back to the US, unless I become independently wealthy. (General workers’ rights are the other big thing – no way I’m going back to a ‘right to work’ state or only 2 weeks paid holiday a year, 3 if I’m lucky.)

All three systems I’ve experienced as an adult have their bad points and all have their good points. I could tell you stories about trying to get insurance in the US to pay for tests my doctor thought I needed or waiting months for sinus surgery in the UK. I could also tell you stories of crap doctors in all three countries (and good ones as well).

Instead, I’ll just state that I pay under £100 a year for what’s called a prescription prepayment certificate. With that, I get ‘free’ prescriptions (free in the sense of no payment there – obviously, I’ve paid for the certificate).

I used to pay more than that per month in the US, since my work’s health insurance didn’t cover prescriptions. The bare minimum prescriptions I can be on at any time are asthma inhalers and sinus nose sprays. I would try to take the least amount of inhaler that I could, which wasn’t good for my health to say the least. Now I don’t worry about it and just take the meds I need.

Also, in 2001, I was made redundant (along with almost everyone else who worked in the web) and couldn’t find a job for 6 months. During that time, I was also really ill with what ended up to be a kind of anemia. I did have to wait way too long to get certain tests done (not the initial blood tests but ones to try to find the cause), but I didn’t have to worry about getting the treatment I needed, and I got better.

I’ve had problems with anemia since then, and I have had no trouble getting my blood tested regularly or getting treatment. Also no problems with getting blood tests to check my hormones – I also have PCOS, and it scares me to think that I’d be uninsurable if I ever moved back home.

I don’t consider myself privileged, if by privileged you mean rich. However, I do work hard for my miniscule paycheck, and I’d like to keep it, please.

(As a side bar, let me debunk the theory that I’m only against UHC because I want to keep the poor people down. I’d benefit financially from a government-run UHC system because of my profession. More people with health insurance = more people go to the doctor. Bills actually getting paid = more money for hospitals = more money for Emmy, who is employed by the hospital. Yes, my medical expenses would go up, but so would my salary. I have every reason, career-wise, want UHC. I still don’t care for it as presented. Obama may change my opinion with his ideas, but that remains to be seen.)

If we were to go to UHC, I’d pay more per month for less coverage. The government is NOT going to pay to keep me in Prada. Please to be explaining why UHC would be a good idea for me, because I’m not interested, thanks.

Because my uninsured ass will be breathing untreated strep germs all over the same grocery carts you push, the same water fountains you use, and the same door latches you touch. I will miss more work, you don’t mind covering for me, do you? If I don’t work next to you, I work for some place you want something from. I hope you don’t mind waiting because we’re understaffed.

Eventually, I will go to the emergency room when my treatable sniffle gets bad enough that I can’t self-medicate, self-treat, or ignore. I’ll be treated for a major illness, or at least stabilized and sent off. I’ll default on my medical bills because you can’t get blood from a stone, but you won’t mind paying a higher price–even if your great insurance company negotiates an 80% discount, 80% of $500 is more than 80% of $300, but somebody (you) has to take up the slack for my not being able to pay.

When the hospital does finally come after me, I’ll lose my house. It’ll go into foreclosure and maybe go up for auction at a fraction of the cost. And I’m your neighbor–so sorry that you’ve just lost a hundred grand of equity on your house because it sits next door to an overgrown derelict.

And finally, when my kid needs a kidney transplant that no insurer will pay for, I will steal those Prada glasses right off your face to hock in a shop to pay for it.

But it’s all good, right, because you’ll only be out fifty bucks.

Do you have no family members who have little, bad or no health insurance? Do you not know anybody you care even the slightest little bit about who doesn’t have insurance?

Can’t you imagine what your life might be like when that insurance that you are so smugly talking about goes up in smoke?

I hope you never lose that insurance, so you never have to figure out whether you’ll buy food or medicine or go to the doctor! Or maybe I should hope you lose it, because it irks me no end that you’d brag on your insurance paying for a pair of vanity glasses while people die preventable deaths because the self-same insurance ‘can’t afford’ to pay for their procedures.

Kat: I think we’re coming at this from two different sides. You are using the coverage you have as an example. I have never said that UHC would not work- because it obviously does in several countries- but if you look at the American National HealthCare proposals set before Congress, you would see that my costs would indeed go up and my coverage would be less. To keep my current level of coverage, my out-of-pocket fees and costs for private insurance top-up would be exponentially higher. I’m looking at actual proposals and determining how they would affect me.

So basically there is a min coverage (obviously paid for by my hubby via taxes), but his employer paid for medical coverage above and beyond that. We didn’t really understand the medical insurance system when he took his job here and didn’t realise just how constricting policies could be here. It really wasn’t a perk at all here, (although, maybe it is becoming more so) not the way we thought at least. We severely underestimated what was and was not a good policy. But what can you do about that, you get what you’re given from your employer. We’ve learned a lot.

I don’t see why a similar system can’t exist in the USA. Then employers like Emmy’s can still supply them low cost options for superior insurance, but just in case the worst did happen and Emmy lost her job, she would still have medical backup.

But there in lies the rub: peoples mindsets need to change. We all pay happily our house/car/personal insurances every month ‘just in case’, and I’d always looked at it as a similar mentality when it came to healthcare when I was back in NZ. I might spend 30 years paying into the system and seemingly get very little back from it, but there were all those years before(as a child) and after (retired) where I will get my ‘moneys worth’ out of the system. And all it takes is one thing to happen (say having an emergency c-section, a 12 pd baby, 2 weeks in NICU, and coming home with oxygen tanks and various other paraphernalia) and you tend to start thinking you’re getting a pretty good deal.