Healthcare & rationing

[vankirkc]

The story in the example you gave was not Austria.

I'm asking what criteria a live birth meets towards infant mortality statistics in your country. I gave an example of how the statistics in some countries are made meaningless in comparison to US statistics because different criteria are used.

There was a recent well-publicized case in Britain where a 22-week infant was left to die because the guideline was 23 weeks.

But the really disgusting thing is that death isn't counted in the infant mortality statistics, because it's considered a stillbirth at that age. So Soros and merry band of socialists get to say health care in the UK is better than the U.S., where the baby would have been given a fighting chance, and counted against us if she died.

What are you smoking? Soros is one of the top ten capitalists of our time.

[Skipjack]

The government is going to take $100 a month from me for an insurance option (Medicare) I do not want.

Well yeah, but it is already going to do that, no matter whether Obamas plan happens or not, right?
Your mate might have a good option, but it is left to wonder whether the insurance company will really pay once she has the need for it, or whether they will find some crooked nose or hairloss, or whatever they think is reason for them to deny her coverage. As we saw earlier that is happening quite often in the US.
Would kinda piss me off, if I paid part of my salary (and that can be quite a lot) to an insurance company and they deny me coverage because of an unreported case of earwax. Here I at least I know that I will get something for my money. And... as I said earlier, noone here is denied treatment, not even some turkish woman that wants to get pregnant for the 9th time over.
I want to see any US insurance company pay for that.
The so called death panels are a hysteria put into the world by none other than Sarah "Joe sixpack" Palin. Even media critical of public healthcare and Obama call it unnecessary hysteria.

BTW, did I mention that in 9 US states domestic violence is regarded as a preexisting condition and can be used by insurance companies to deny treatment to women? Personally I find this disgusting and this has lots of implications on the criminal aspect of the problem (it is already an underreported crime, the prospect of loosing health insurance sure does not help).

Makes me wonder who really has those deathpanels. Those private insurance companies sure dont seem to be to eager to pay for anything at all.

[Scupperer]

BTW, did I mention that in 9 US states domestic violence is regarded as a preexisting condition and can be used by insurance companies to deny treatment to women? Personally I find this disgusting and this has lots of implications on the criminal aspect of the problem (it is already an underreported crime, the prospect of loosing health insurance sure does not help).

Not exactly. It's still bad, but it's not what you read on the SEIU's blog, or whoever linked from it.

There's no denial of treatment, just an excuse to refuse an applicant.

[Skipjack]

No, not denial of treatment, but denial of coverage. If domestic abuse is handled as a preexisting condition, then they can deny coverage if they think that you widthheld that information during application for an insurance. After all, they can generally deny you coverage if you widthheld information about a preexisting condition, right?
Thats at least what I read out of it.

Edit: and even if it is just about denial of insurance, this would not be very helpful to the victims. Personally I would call it ruthless, but that is just me.

[Scupperer]

No, not denial of treatment, but denial of coverage. If domestic abuse is handled as a preexisting condition, then they can deny coverage if they think that you widthheld that information. Since they can generally deny you coverage if you widthheld information about a preexisting condition, right?
Thats at least what I read out of it.

That's stretching it. What they can do is refuse an application for health insurance based on previous cases of domestic abuse. This means certain providers simply won't accept them as customers to begin with. The potential customer would also have to have not been insured for an entire year prior to applying, as HIPAA laws provide protections against pre-existing condition exclusions.

In order for an insurer to use it as means to deny an existing customer's coverage, they would have to have first asked about it in the enrollment process, then the customer would have had to lie about it in order for the insurer to have any grounds for refusing coverage of a treatment, and the insurer would have to have proof that their customer lied to them.

It's not an unimaginable scenario, but I doubt it's common, or has even occurred.

[Skipjack]

It's not an unimaginable scenario, but I doubt it's common, or has even occurred.

It is one of the nastinesses of domestic violence that victims usually dont talk about it. Most never gets reported. That is a fact. So it does not seem a far stretch to me that victims would not report it to the insurer either.
This also only seems to apply to employees? What about those that are self employed and therefore self insured?

[MSimon]

I'm asking what criteria a live birth meets towards infant mortality statistics in your country. I gave an example of how the statistics in some countries are made meaningless in comparison to US statistics because different criteria are used.

There was a recent well-publicized case in Britain where a 22-week infant was left to die because the guideline was 23 weeks.

But the really disgusting thing is that death isn't counted in the infant mortality statistics, because it's considered a stillbirth at that age. So Soros and merry band of socialists get to say health care in the UK is better than the U.S., where the baby would have been given a fighting chance, and counted against us if she died.

What are you smoking? Soros is one of the top ten capitalists of our time.

Crony capitalist would be more like it.

BTW Armand Hammer was a capitalist and crony to many communist regimes. You ought to look him up.

[MSimon]

No, not denial of treatment, but denial of coverage. If domestic abuse is handled as a preexisting condition, then they can deny coverage if they think that you widthheld that information during application for an insurance. After all, they can generally deny you coverage if you widthheld information about a preexisting condition, right?
Thats at least what I read out of it.

Edit: and even if it is just about denial of insurance, this would not be very helpful to the victims. Personally I would call it ruthless, but that is just me.

Emergency room care would still be available.

===

It is a tough situation. A good number of victims of child abuse will go on to create situations where they get abused as adults. So domestic abuse is an indicator (not proof) of a pre-existing condition.

[TallDave]

What are you smoking? Soros is one of the top ten capitalists of our time.

Soros spends vast sums pushing socialist causes. His Commonwealth Fund is a perfect example.

You might just as well argue Chomsky and Michael Moore are great capitalists too, given their earnings and wealth.

[TallDave]

Your mate might have a good option, but it is left to wonder whether the insurance company will really pay once she has the need for it, or whether they will find some crooked nose or hairloss, or whatever they think is reason for them to deny her coverage.

As long as you disclose everything, denial of coverage is extremely rare. When you hear these horror stories of rescission, they generally don't tell you there was some misbehavior on the part of the insured. Obama's speech included a couple of these fact-challenged anecdotes.

Insurance companies don't go out of their way to deny care because it just doesn't make sense. They can be sued, which can cost more than the treatment even if they win, and such cases generate bad publicity besides.

[Skipjack]

They can be sued, which can cost more than the treatment even if they win, and such cases generate bad publicity besides.

I posted some more examples from the Washington Post. Well maybe they are "fact challenged" too. I have a feeling though that they both are true. Insurance companies have entire departments doing nothing but deny claims.
What missbehaviour on the part of the insured would that be?

It is a tough situation. A good number of victims of child abuse will go on to create situations where they get abused as adults. So domestic abuse is an indicator (not proof) of a pre-existing condition

Even if it was, they are victims, not perpetrators. Victims have to be protected, not harassed by insurance companies.

[Scupperer]

What about those that are self employed and therefore self insured?

To the best of my knowledge, in an individual plan, for the first year of coverage, insurers do not have to cover the costs associated with pre-existing conditions. After the first year, they are required to roll the pre-existing condition into the coverage, unless it's a condition excluded from the policy. This is the same way it works if you get employer coverage without previous coverage within the past year.

The trick, with a pre-existing condition, is to be able to get individual insurance to begin with; and this is a problem regardless of whether you're a beaten wife, or just a run-of-the-mill type-2 diabetic. The employer health insurance market is so protected that individual insurance, even under the best of conditions, costs about twice as much. With pre-existing conditions, expect the cost to be 3-4 times as much as under an employer's plan.

[pfrit]

Even if it was, they are victims, not perpetrators. Victims have to be protected, not harassed by insurance companies.

While I might agree with you here (and in the general case, I do), this is a very slippery slope. Most abusers were abused themselves as children. Most pedophiles were pedophilia victims (interestingly enough, the age of their targets are usually the age that they were when they were first abused). At some point you have to take responsibility for your own actions. That you are a victim is a reason, not an excuse. I am not saying that it is the fault of victims of spousal abuse that they are abused, but if they cannot find within themselves the reason that they ended up in that situation, then they may end up in the same situation again. Finding the point at which you assign blame is very hard. Think of the guy in the NYC subway in the '80s who shot the mugger. Traveled around for days waiting to be mugged so that he could shoot them. Was he a victim? Tough question. From the point of view of this thread, I would want the benefit of the doubt to go with the victim, but not forever. What would you say if someone said this. "I am a smoker because my father chain smoked in the house as I was growing up so don't penalize me for smoking." Do we handle this person differently than the person who started smoking out of the blue to lose weight?

[Skipjack]

Well, in my world view the victims are always the ones that deserve protection.
No matter whether the guy was looking to get mugged, the mugger was not forced to mug him after all.
I also want to point out that while the abused abuser picture gets held up very often by lawyers, it rarely is the truth.
If you aske me whether it is nature versus nurture, I would say it is nature in 80% of the cases, not nurture. They have pretty solid studies on this now.
E.g. there was a study about adopted children that grew up in exactly the same conditions and the same family and they were not more alike than children from random families were. On the other hand one egged twins that were separated at birth and grew up separated, without ever seeing each other, were persuing the same carreers, had the same interests, even wore the same cloths.
The more we learn about DNA, the more we know that our genes control more aspects of our lives than we want to admit.

The trick, with a pre-existing condition, is to be able to get individual insurance to begin with;

Well that by itself is a problem already, isnt it? It for sure as hell is mine.

[MSimon]

Well, in my world view the victims are always the ones that deserve protection.

Then victims do not take responsibility.

As I said earlier - victims were often abused children. Then they grow up and incite situations to repeat the abuse. Are they really victims?

If you aske me whether it is nature versus nurture, I would say it is nature in 80% of the cases, not nurture.

What we find in cases of drug abuse is that nature provides the predisposition and trauma provides the trigger. So it is not nature vs nurture. It is both.

I can't speak to other conditions. Here is an example of the trauma side:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2004/09/heroin.html

We also find that with PTSD. Everyone gets it short term. Only 20% of the population has long term problems. Most get over it. Here is a mouse study that gives some nice clues:

http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrations ... ws0217.htm

Here are two on police and PTSD:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... -ptsd.html

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... abuse.html

Here is one on the genetics of substance abuse:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... ation.html