Say No to Socialism

[dairyfreelife]

There is also a concern that as time moves forward and the government monopolizes the health care system and the people using it, that certain unconstitutional things will be required of those who have no other choice but to use government health care. The freedoms that parents enjoy today such as the choice to not vaccinate or attend well child checkups or the rights of a cancer patient to have their choice of treatment, standard or experimental might be revoked in the name of public healthcare, and for the good of the people. These freedoms and rights might be dissolved under the guise that they are dangerous, and it is for the protection of the individual that it is required of them to follow suit what the government officials, doctors, nurses, etc. deem appropriate for their health and well being.

Samaritan Ministries is NOT an insurance company. It is a Christian company that has been around for nearly twenty years bringing together the funds from all of their members, 20,500 families, in order to meet the needs of each of those individuals. It is Christians meeting other Christian's needs, just the way we are supposed to. What is even greater - share plans are left in tact through Obama's healthcare initiative.

roadto31.blogspot.com/2012/08/just-say-no-to-health-insurance.html

[emmiedahl]

The privatized insurance system is pretty much the opposite of socialism. Scamaritan Ministries (I believe it was treemom who came up that oh-so-appropriate name) is more like socialism (at least on the surface) in that people are pooling resources to give to others that need it.

Someone needs to add to the Wisdom Booklet definition of socialism. It is not a meaningless slur. It actually has a definition that no conservative or fundie seems able to grasp.

[bouncyball]

The freedoms that parents enjoy today such as the choice to not vaccinate or attend well child checkups or the rights of a cancer patient to have their choice of treatment, standard or experimental might be revoked in the name of public healthcare, and for the good of the people

You have the freedom to not vaccinate your children and to die of cancer if you can't afford treatment. Excellent!

Fuck freedom, I just want to be treated. I don't care where or how.

[Childless]

Experimental treatments? Yeah, insurance companies are lining up around the block to cover those. :roll:

[YPestis]

Samaritan preys on the "big government" fears of fundies and their ignorance of modern medicine. People who are relatively healthy get scared when they hear of gov't recommendations on vaccinations and well-child visits. They hear stories of hospitals "forcing" young children to do cancer treatments even though the parents prefer alternatives like prayer and fasting. Instead of thinking, "hey, isn't it great we have a system that ensures children receive the care that will keep them or make them healthy?", they think "I don't want the government telling me what I can or can't do with my kid! They're taking prayer away from health care!!!".

Therefore, these families go on these cams. Plus, it's cheapness is perfect for the family. For most families with a history of expensive medical bills or chronic illnesses, and who don't have celebrity fundie status (aka Maxwells), they probably avoid this because they know they need a reliable insurance policy in order to access their health care.

I feel the saddest part of this entire health care reform debate is that the people who most oppose reforms are the ones who least understand how it works. They seem to feel that insurance is a 'pay as you go' system where people put in money and then get out money for health care. Actually, insurance works by pooling healthy people's money together to cover the one sick person. It doesn't work when healthy people "opt out", it doesn't work when it only covers sick people. Yet that's what we see happening when we decry the evil government forcing everyone to have insurance.

[freejoytoo]

Such total BS. I can choose to see a huge number of different doctors, get second opinions if I want them and most importantly get fast treatment if and when I need to FOR FREE. And they can't force a route of action on you at all.

I can't imagine my access to healthcare and contraception being limited on my finances. I just find it sick. I don't know what kind of propaganda about the horrors of social healthcare North America hears comes from but it's all bogus. My mum recently had two scans in very quick succession and she only had to wait a few weeks.

[galaxygirl]

They have no idea what real socialism is, do they?

[FlorenceHamilton]

The privatized insurance system is pretty much the opposite of socialism. Scamaritan Ministries (I believe it was treemom who came up that oh-so-appropriate name) is more like socialism (at least on the surface) in that people are pooling resources to give to others that need it.

Someone needs to add to the Wisdom Booklet definition of socialism. It is not a meaningless slur. It actually has a definition that no conservative or fundie seems able to grasp.

Oh yeah...that.

[Burris]

I happen to like the mixed system we have here in Canada - including the fact people with ongoing illnesses can't be discriminated against in recieving care funding merely because they have "pre-existing conditions." (We do still pay for certain things: Ambulance rides, better bandages, dental and eye care etc. - but emergency and ongoing care is free in itself – and that's all I give a shit about.)

[E Street Fan]

I happen to like the mixed system we have here in Canada - including the fact people with ongoing illnesses can't be discriminated against in recieving care funding merely because they have "pre-existing conditions." (We do still pay for certain things: Ambulance rides, better bandages, dental and eye care etc. - but emergency and ongoing care is free in itself – and that's all I give a shit about.)

Question for you: would things like cataracts and other eye diseases be covered? I'm curious about how that would work.

.

[Burris]

Question for you: would things like cataracts and other eye diseases be covered? I'm curious about how that would work.

.

Yes. I have a visual impairment and my appointments and needs - with the exception of eye glasses - have always been covered.

I remember a few years back there was a big to-do about how the best replacement lenses following cataract surgery were not covered by our province. The province eventually covered the newer lenses - but the newest and latest "luxury items" are usually not covered until a long while after they're introduced, when they eventually become standard. (That's here in Alberta, though. Different provinces offer different levels of coverage.)

Even my husband's wheelchair, at 10k, was partially covered by the province. We had to do a co-pay. People with lower incomes do not. (There are better power chairs more fit to my husband's high usage, but AADL, the body which shoulders these costs, does not cover them because they are considered luxury items.) I'm not complaining, however; it already costs a lot to be disabled. I'm grateful the government helps significantly with the monetary burden.

I cannot even imagine how we would live in the US: My husband and I would essentially have to give up our decent income to qualify for Medicare simply because no insurance company would help hubby.

[ElphabaGalinda]

These people have no idea what socialized healthcare really is. No one is forcing treatment on you. You have the right to refuse any treatment you want. But when you're sick, you don't need to worry about what it costs because it's free regardless of age, pre existing conditions or income. Fundies, who are generally too poor, should be the ones that want this most. They're just too uneducated to realize what it is. I'm so happy to live in Canada because of teh healthcare among other things. Funny, the Canadian fundies aren't really known for complaining about the "socialist" system. I guess because since they know what it really is they can't use myths and scare tactics.

[ILoveJellybeans]

I dont see what the problem is, I grew up in a country with free healthcare, and I think its a good thing. Certainly better than having to pay for medical treatment if you get ill or have an accident.

[jjmennonite]

What is even greater - share plans are left in tact through Obama's healthcare initiative

Does this mean Obama is leaving them because he is tactful ????? :lol:

I am so grateful I live in Canada. My daughter had 3 hospital visits before she was 2, and as a single mother, unemployed for one of them, I shudder to think where I would be if I was out of pocket for those.

My parents were impoverished and this is also a great place to be old poor people. The are/were very well looked after and we never had to pay.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I feel the saddest part of this entire health care reform debate is that the people who most oppose reforms are the ones who least understand how it works. They seem to feel that insurance is a 'pay as you go' system where people put in money and then get out money for health care. Actually, insurance works by pooling healthy people's money together to cover the one sick person. It doesn't work when healthy people "opt out", it doesn't work when it only covers sick people. Yet that's what we see happening when we decry the evil government forcing everyone to have insurance.

Seriously. You don't (often) find these people having ideological issues with the fact that the government pays for "socialist" fire departments out of public revenue, but they refuse to understand that health care is a similar issue. Disease spreads too!

[E Street Fan]

Yes. I have a visual impairment and my appointments and needs - with the exception of eye glasses - have always been covered.

I remember a few years back there was a big to-do about how the best replacement lenses following cataract surgery were not covered by our province. The province eventually covered the newer lenses - but the newest and latest "luxury items" are usually not covered until a long while after they're introduced, when they eventually become standard. (That's here in Alberta, though. Different provinces offer different levels of coverage.)

Even my husband's wheelchair, at 10k, was partially covered by the province. We had to do a co-pay. People with lower incomes do not. (There are better power chairs more fit to my husband's high usage, but AADL, the body which shoulders these costs, does not cover them because they are considered luxury items.) I'm not complaining, however; it already costs a lot to be disabled. I'm grateful the government helps significantly with the monetary burden.

I cannot even imagine how we would live in the US: My husband and I would essentially have to give up our decent income to qualify for Medicare simply because no insurance company would help hubby.

Thanks for answering. I thought that's how the eye health question would be settled, although I wasn't sure.

I don't understand the mentality of someone who would deny others decent education, housing, health care, and so on. I can rationalize it (I've studied Conservative), but I can't understand it.

[slickcat79]

Kim Coghlan posted yet another entry about Scamaritan Ministries last week. She said something that I don't think she has mentioned before:

Switching from a traditional mega-insurance company to Samaritan Ministries *is* a big jump. It’s something that we had talked about for years, but probably wouldn’t have done if Perry’s employer hadn’t presented the option in the place of traditional insurance.

Um, seriously? Dougie offers his employees the chance to join SM instead of giving them insurance coverage? It has GOT TO BE a conflict of interest to recommend an outside "insurance" program to your employees when you get a discount on your coverage for every family you refer to the program. Between the VF blog, the conferences, and the employees, I'd be willing to bet that Dougie pays nothing for his coverage and gets the best possible service from SM. In case we didn't know it before, Doug Phillips is a tool.

[Minerva]

That's odd, my parents opted my siblings out of many of their vaccines, in Canada, and no one tried to stop them. I love how right-wing folks are telling tales of how twisted and fascist healthcare provision would become in a socialized system, when many countries already have free healthcare and anyone who can be bothered to look them up can see the distinct lack of freedom-stifling totalitarianism.

I concur, Doug Phillips is a tool.

[Three and Done]

The enitire situation is ridiculous and makes me crazy. :evil:

If our current healthcare system is SOOO wonderful, why do we have children dying from abscessed teeth? Why did my cousin, who had Hodgkin's Disease, have to come up with cash or literally go blind? Why did the state of Florida decide that he "No longer had cancer and did not need Medicaid!" based upon their actuarial tables, and NOT what his doctors said? Why did so many of my elderly low income home health patients worry about if they could afford the medicine that kept them from becoming seriously ill?

A personal story - I had to have spinal surgery some years back due to my spinal cord being impinged by a herniated disc and spinal stenosis. The surgery was NOT optional, I was experiencing progressive symptoms that had already left my left arm basically useless, and without the surgery I would have eventually become paralyzed. I did have private insurance at the time, yet I later found that the hospital where my surgery was performed "did not participate" with my insurance, and ultimately got stuck with a TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR judgment against me for the "unpaid" portion. I was charged approximately $4500 just for the titanium plate and 4 screws holding my spine together.

It seems that a large number of people in this country have fallen for the twisted version of "socialism" presented by the right wing. They don't know the facts, just that it's a bad, bad thing and they MUST be against it!!!ELEVENTY!11!

PS - Doug Phillips is most definitely a tool.

[jenny_islander]

At the very absolute least, we should have national health care coverage for:

1. Prevention and treatment of contagious illness. Because you don't have an economy if you don't have people working.

2. Prevention and treatment of conditions that are likely to render the sufferer unable to work, so that the patient has a better chance of rejoining the workforce and escaping dependence on government aid.

3. Everything the very young and the very old need to be as healthy as possible, because making their relatives pay for it can drag an entire family into poverty with ensuing dependence on government aid.

4. Anything that can kill a person, no matter what it is or who they are, because the right to life is right in the constitution!

[tacky]

I'm still kind of emotional/unobjective about this issue because my husband wanted to try experimental treatments and we were denied by our insurance company, even though his cancer was rare and had no chemo protocol of its own. His employer dumped us six months into his battle and I've been paying $1400 a month to keep us insured under COBRA in order to afford his treatments. He was too ill to work and I was his full time caregiver (i.e. no money coming in). If it wasn't for Hospice coming in the last two months of his life, we'd be even more screwed than we are now. I have a bill sitting on my counter right now for $4,527 for a procedure he had three weeks before he died that the insurance company does not want to cover. Awesome.

[Burris]

I'm still kind of emotional/unobjective about this issue because my husband wanted to try experimental treatments and we were denied by our insurance company, even though his cancer was rare and had no chemo protocol of its own. His employer dumped us six months into his battle and I've been paying $1400 a month to keep us insured under COBRA in order to afford his treatments. He was too ill to work and I was his full time caregiver (i.e. no money coming in). If it wasn't for Hospice coming in the last two months of his life, we'd be even more screwed than we are now. I have a bill sitting on my counter right now for $4,527 for a procedure he had three weeks before he died that the insurance company does not want to cover. Awesome.

Damn. I'm sorry for your loss.

I don't know how it works there, but maybe you could negotiate a debt settlement with the various creditors - or have someone from the hospice or another organization negotiate on your behalf.

[emmiedahl]

I'm still kind of emotional/unobjective about this issue because my husband wanted to try experimental treatments and we were denied by our insurance company, even though his cancer was rare and had no chemo protocol of its own. His employer dumped us six months into his battle and I've been paying $1400 a month to keep us insured under COBRA in order to afford his treatments. He was too ill to work and I was his full time caregiver (i.e. no money coming in). If it wasn't for Hospice coming in the last two months of his life, we'd be even more screwed than we are now. I have a bill sitting on my counter right now for $4,527 for a procedure he had three weeks before he died that the insurance company does not want to cover. Awesome.

Wow. I am so sorry. You definitely do not need financial struggle on top of losing someone you love.

[sea_gale]

I'm still kind of emotional/unobjective about this issue because my husband wanted to try experimental treatments and we were denied by our insurance company, even though his cancer was rare and had no chemo protocol of its own. His employer dumped us six months into his battle and I've been paying $1400 a month to keep us insured under COBRA in order to afford his treatments. He was too ill to work and I was his full time caregiver (i.e. no money coming in). If it wasn't for Hospice coming in the last two months of his life, we'd be even more screwed than we are now. I have a bill sitting on my counter right now for $4,527 for a procedure he had three weeks before he died that the insurance company does not want to cover. Awesome.

Tacky, that is awful.

As a British person, I am grateful for the NHS which vaccinated me and protected me from myriad infectious diseases (which my parents can remember killing their peers); which has treated the depression which caused me to drop out of my PhD (which would have meant the end of alternate universe American me's insurance) and which stopped me from dying when I got a serious kidney infection last year. If I'd been born in America, I'd be seriously depressed and bankrupt at best, dead at worse. Yay socialism!

[dairyfreelife]

I'm still kind of emotional/unobjective about this issue because my husband wanted to try experimental treatments and we were denied by our insurance company, even though his cancer was rare and had no chemo protocol of its own. His employer dumped us six months into his battle and I've been paying $1400 a month to keep us insured under COBRA in order to afford his treatments. He was too ill to work and I was his full time caregiver (i.e. no money coming in). If it wasn't for Hospice coming in the last two months of his life, we'd be even more screwed than we are now. I have a bill sitting on my counter right now for $4,527 for a procedure he had three weeks before he died that the insurance company does not want to cover. Awesome.

I can't claim to know how you feel...but I know people who've been in your position and it's horrible. I know a woman who has an almost 2yo child and her husband has been in treatment for a terminal cancer. She's been the sole provider on not good income and even with insurance has medical bills up the wazoo. My grandmother had about 20k+ in bills after my grandfather had been in the hospital a month before his passing. Even with insurance, she still had 10s of 1000s in medical bills. It's awful. I've been trying to get a procedure done myself before I finish school and have to change providers for fear that if I switch companies with a new job, they'll claim my condition was pre-existing and refuse to do anything to cover. I'm hoping the new insurance protocals will prevent that from happening, otherwise it can't be taken care of and could end up destroying my reproductive system and prevent me from ever having a child should I ever want to have one someday.

Simply, you truly have my sympathy...too many people have to deal with similar shit and it's not right.