Thank Goodness for BC Medical Coverage

el henry · Jan 16, 2017

I have been trying to stay away for the same reason that I tried to stay away (with intermittent success) from the politics thread, not great for my blood pressure.

Others are making the argument for Universal Health Care, with which I as an American agree, far better than I can. Carry on. :clap:

I do not want to see Christianity as a whole big religion represented by just one point of view, however. I would be considered way active in my church, big and little C. I can assure you that in no way shape or form do we take some survival of the fittest mentality, completely antithetical to Christianity, or think that if you open a Bible your problems go away.

My parish runs a soup kitchen that feeds two hundred people a day. My Diocese started a social service charity that houses the homeless, feeds the poor, helps the mentally ill, regardless of whether the world considers them "worthy". We ask for nothing, and certainly no Bible opening in return, not because we are so wonderful, but because that is what our faith calls us to do. And most of our parishioners are sad and upset that we need to provide these services, rather than have the government provide them.

And I am glad Ladskater can rely on BC's system.:yes:

samkrut@mail.ru · Jan 16, 2017

chapis said:
Cancer is not so simply, there are more options than super early diagnosis or terminal, there are several stages and the treatment is not the same for every type of cancer or each stage. And sugery and simple meds can be 10,000 dlls being optimist, but if the family earns 120 dlls/month, tell me please how can they pay for it?
And about hemodialysis, here is never indicated like first option, of course the first option is peritoneal dialysis, but you know is not always possible. Just 1 week ago I saw to die a 15 yo boy because his peritoneum was useless, and there was not space for haemodialysis. Of course his family had the option to private sessions, cheap :sarcasm:, only 3000 dlls/week, for a family earning 200dls/month. Other example, man 40 yo, acute myocardial infraction, he came in time to angioplasty (5000 dls) or trombolysis (750 dls), yes, family had not even 750 dlls, so, just take your aspirin and pray for the best. Probably you think they are lazy people who don´t want to work, no, they do have a job, earning 4 dls/day.

But again, what is the solution that you propose? If the value of a basic level healthcare in a $100bln economy is $1bln the society can likely afford it. But if we aim at state of the art surgeries or even standard heart bypass surgeries, if we talk about potent drugs like the latest generation chemotherapy, if we talk about nice clean hospital rooms with capable nurses for all who need it the value of healthcare in that case may be $10bln, $20bln, whatever number we can think of. So that the society clearly cannot afford it. Then what one should do? To deprive everyone anything but basic level for the sake of fairness? To devise some "fair" system like a lottery or a line? It does not solve anything and will be likely abused. In fact this system is introduced in Russia now. We have mandatory healthcare insurance that provides just a basic level. Then for each type of special treatment there is a regional quota. Like 100 heart surgeries per region per year are done for free. The question is who gets those free surgeries and what to do if there are people who needed them more but could not get into the quota? Then the third way is to let those who can pay get whatever they can pay for. Sounds unfair but again what are other solutions when the country cannot afford a good healthcare other than basic level and quotas? I know only 1 example where they tried to offer healthcare which the country could not afford: Cuba. So the share of healthcare in the economy was very high, but everything else was lamentable. And once Russia stopped to buy sugar cane it did not need the whole system nearly collapsed. You cannot get the better of economic laws although they may seem unfair. Communists tried and failed. May be some north European countries where income taxes on rich climb to 60% come close to offering good healthcare to everyone. But they command about 1% of the world's population.

May be Manitou was a bit harsh but there are no universal solutions against inequality as of today.

andromache · Jan 16, 2017

karne said:
I can't even begin to describe how ill your callous, cruel, cold-hearted response made me feel.

You genuinely believe that rich people should be the only ones with access to healthcare. I never thought I would ever meet a person with such a disgusting view.

And yet you espouse faith and Christianity in your later post. I thought your religion was supposed to "love" everyone and look after everyone. (Ha, what am I kidding? All religions only care about their bottom lines. They don't actually care about people.)

My parents are not rich. Because of degenerative arthritis, my mother's hip joints were literally eating themselves away into nothing. Because our country is a sensible one, she was able to get two hip replacements and a knee replacement without my parents having to pay any more than the taxes they had paid during their lives. If it had come down to my parents having to pay for those replacements - and no private insurance would have taken them because arthritis is a pre-existing condition - they probably would have had to re-mortgage or even sell their house, borrow money, or I don't even know what, just to finance one of those replacements, let alone having to do all three.

You are telling me, Manitou, that you believe my mother should have had to suffer in tremendous agony while her joints effectively self-destructed, until it reached the point where she was wheelchair-bound because she would have been unable to walk, and then be effectively house-bound because my parents would have never have been able to afford the modifications to cars/home for her to go out? You are telling me that I should have had to watch my mother suffer in years of pain, until she eventually took her own life because she was unable to bear it any more? I have no doubts that that is how that scenario ends. And in your system, my parents would not have been able to afford any psychological help, either.

Well karne, maybe your parents should've worked harder to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps instead of getting a free government handout! /sarcasm

My parents are middle-class, both worked their whole lives and had insurance through my father's employer, and when my mother got stage 4 cancer, the insurance only allowed her to get two treatments and that was the maximum they would cover. Once the ACA went into effect, the rule about unlimited coverage meant my mother could get all the treatments she needed and didn't need to choose between financial ruin for our entire family and her health.

IMO, this thread would be more productive if instead of arguing, we all shared our experiences of how we or our friends and family have benefited immeasurably from the so-called "entitlements" that are "ruining modern society."

Barb · Jan 16, 2017

[email protected] said:
But again, what is the solution that you propose? If the value of a basic level healthcare in a $100bln economy is $1bln the society can likely afford it. But if we aim at state of the art surgeries or even standard heart bypass surgeries, if we talk about potent drugs like the latest generation chemotherapy, if we talk about nice clean hospital rooms with capable nurses for all who need it the value of healthcare in that case may be $10bln, $20bln, whatever number we can think of. So that the society clearly cannot afford it. Then what one should do? To deprive everyone anything but basic level for the sake of fairness? To devise some "fair" system like a lottery or a line? It does not solve anything and will be likely abused. In fact this system is introduced in Russia now. We have mandatory healthcare insurance that provides just a basic level. Then for each type of special treatment there is a regional quota. Like 100 heart surgeries per region per year are done for free. The question is who gets those free surgeries and what to do if there are people who needed them more but could not get into the quota? Then the third way is to let those who can pay get whatever they can pay for. Sounds unfair but again what are other solutions when the country cannot afford a good healthcare other than basic level and quotas? I know only 1 example where they tried to offer healthcare which the country could not afford: Cuba. So the share of healthcare in the economy was very high, but everything else was lamentable. And once Russia stopped to buy sugar cane it did not need the whole system nearly collapsed. You cannot get the better of economic laws although they may seem unfair. Communists tried and failed. May be some north European countries where income taxes on rich climb to 60% come close to offering good healthcare to everyone. But they command about 1% of the world's population.

May be Manitou was a bit harsh but there are no universal solutions against inequality as of today.

Our president just bought the new presidential plane (218,000,000 dlls), the most fancy plane for a president in the world, not even Obama or Putin have a plane like that. I think the government think we are enough wealthy to buy that kind of things. The first lady go to Beverly hills to shopping very often, she has not own money, she is an tv actress but she just bought a millionaire house. All our politicians and especially our presidents, end their mandates with a lot of money, I mean, they become millionaires. And they don´t even try hidde it.
I agree we must to do our part but at least in this case is just ridiculous to say the government does all they can, because is not true. Why is logical to pay taxes to buy the best plane available for a president instead of buy medicines?. We are an oil country and we pay one of the highest combustible prices of all the world, where are all that taxes?. I am glad your government is so ¨honest¨, but here they rob in our face, if they steal public money, there is money. I am not demanding the best, I am demanding the basic.
And ultimately why they don´t invest on preventive medicine? they spend at least (250.000,000 dlls/year) on political advertising/publicity. It is gross.
if we are a poor country, how they spend sooo much public money?.

Anyway, It seems my arguments are very local. I am surprised that you have so much faith in your government and being sure that there is not much more they can to do. I am glad Russia is having a better time.

samkrut@mail.ru · Jan 17, 2017

chapis said:
Our president just bought the new presidential plane (218,000,000 dlls), the most fancy plane for a president in the world, not even Obama or Putin have a plane like that. I think the government think we are enough wealthy to buy that kind of things. The first lady go to Beverly hills to shopping very often, she has not own money, she is an tv actress but she just bought a millionaire house. All our politicians and especially our presidents, end their mandates with a lot of money, I mean, they become millionaires. And they don´t even try hidde it.
I agree we must to do our part but at least in this case is just ridiculous to say the government does all they can, because is not true. Why is logical to pay taxes to buy the best plane available for a president instead of buy medicines?. We are an oil country and we pay one of the highest combustible prices of all the world, where are all that taxes?. I am glad your government is so ¨honest¨, but here they rob in our face, if they steal public money, there is money. I am not demanding the best, I am demanding the basic.
And ultimately why they don´t invest on preventive medicine? they spend at least (250.000,000 dlls/year) on political advertising/publicity. It is gross.
if we are a poor country, how they spend sooo much public money?.

Anyway, It seems my arguments are very local. I am surprised that you have so much faith in your government and being sure that there is not much more they can to do. I am glad Russia is having a better time.

Sorry, but your arguments are pedestrian. There was the country where there was very little luxury: the Soviet Union. Stalin was one of the most modest (if not the most modest) dictators in history. Yes, the health care was free in the U.S.S.R. And it served quite well up to a certain level after which it failed. Without capitalism with its striving for profits there was little incentive to create new molecules, hence, we could offer only basic generics or import foreign drugs for hard currency. And the country could not afford to offer for free all those drugs to those who needed them. So it were continuous shortages (not only of drugs - even toilet paper was a "luxury good"). What would have changed if your president had not bought this plane? (not that I support those excesses). The only difference would be that for this money you could have increased the quota. It is a noble but still a partial one-time solution. If you go to the socialism without the riches you can raise the bar somewhat in terms of healthcare level. But you won't be able to offer high quality expensive services (like hemodialisys) for free to everyone who needs them. Mexican economy won't handle it (same as Russian). So we talk only about morality then not about economy.

4everchan · Jan 17, 2017

is it really necessary to turn this thread into a political fest?

Really, all of the OP mentions is how grateful she is to be well treated after being diagnosed with a serious illness.

Get well soon ladskater and remain grateful for the good treatments you are receiving. Good moods, hope and positivism will help you in the healing process!

gravy · Jan 17, 2017

4everchan said:
is it really necessary to turn this thread into a political fest?

Really, all of the OP mentions is how grateful she is to be well treated after being diagnosed with a serious illness.

Get well soon ladskater and remain grateful for the good treatments you are receiving. Good moods, hope and positivism will help you in the healing process!

Let's not be delusional. The entire premise of the OP is inherently political: "I'm glad I don't live in the US where the healthcare policy could turn to crap".

Ladskater · Jan 23, 2017

Wonderful, and fast. With a life threatening illness like cancer everything moves forward fast. The Surgeons are amazing.

Ladskater · Jan 23, 2017

Not many do. Only if there is a long wait. It's because we have a good medical system here that so many people want to move here. Unfortunately, our medical system is getting overused and yes, sometimes abused. We don't have enough Drs. sometimes to fill the need. It's still a good system and many people are very thankful to have it.

Ladskater · Jan 23, 2017

Did not mean to start any wars here or make political statement. I am just grateful that I do have medical coverage at a time when I really need it. Most of the time we tend to take our medical coverage for granted and complain about the short comings of it, for the most part I would say most Canadians get the help they need and don't have to worry about huge medical bills coming in. A lot of my coverage comes through my job of course, which really helps. If a person can prove that they medically need a procedure it is usually covered. Of course, cosmetic procedures are out of pocket. We can thank Kiefer Sutherlands Grandfather -Politician Tommy Douglas who fought to establish medical coverage for all Canadians in 1959.

moonvine · Jan 31, 2017

I'm sorry but no. A category 5 tornado hit Tuscaloosa, AL. I was living in Austin, TX at the time. I spent several weeks collecting donations for pets and people, rented a U-haul trailer, drove them there, distributed them. Tide Loads of Hope was there doing folks' laundry, a CVS trailer was there making sure folks got meds, the Red Cross was there, etc etc. I'm not too good to put boots on my feet and clear rubble either. And there were people there from all over the country helping. I don't remember if anyone did a benefit concert, but I can absolutely tell you people were not left alone to rebuild their own houses either.

And the U S has a horrible health care system. Watch "Sick Around the World" sometime and educate yourself.

Thank Goodness for BC Medical Coverage

el henry

Go have some cake. And come back with jollity.

[email protected]

Medalist

andromache

Barb

[email protected]

Medalist

4everchan

gravy

¿No ven quién soy yo?

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~

moonvine

All Hail Queen Gracie

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