today I am attending a fun raiseing event for a man with cancer.

It seems he has run out of medical leave and is going bankrupt he has two children.

I have a neighbore who lives about a quarter mile behind me who has a party every year this time. He has a long long driveway and I cant even see his house.


His driveway runs fairly close to my summer garden and he stopped ysterday to invite me, explained about his friend and invited me and said donations at the door.

How verry nice of him.


As I weeded yesterday my thoughts turned to healthcare and is this what it has come to?


In this once great country we have to hold fundraisers for people to pay medical bills?

on one hand it warms my heart someone is stepping up like this, on the other it shames me how out of wack things have become.

Well we are in agreement on this one I think. Single payer is the
only reasonable way to go and we are on the way there in baby steps.

We should have the most efficient and best quality health care
system in the world and save half a trillion dollars a year doing it.

Universal single payer healthcare cannot come fast enough as far as
I am concerned. I'm convinced we will eventually have the best and
most efficient system in the world - just wish it would happen faster
for the sake of those who are ill or who will fall ill in the next
couple of years.

I'm confused. You said he ran out of medical leave not insurance.
Wouldn't that be his employer who gives him the medical leave time?
You didn't say anything about him running out of insurance.

I didnt catch all the details from what I gathered is that he has run out of paid sick time and is on FMLA and his out of pocket expenses are verry high. I tried not to get to personal into the financial hardship.

I was just trying to underhand how his sick time at work was related healthcare.

how does an issue of employers limiting the number of days of paid sick leave have anything to do with health care in america?

In uber amerika you get sick, you go bankrupt then possibly die.

Hardly a country worth defending. Its not a society to be pround of. umerika gives democracy a bad name.

i got reeeeaaaaaaal sick, was reeeeeeeaaaaaal close to dieing and got nowhere near bankruptcy.



nobody's asking you to defend the country. you've made yourself quite clear on that issue and there are pleanty of us willing to do that, but you still did not answer my question. your original post said that your friend is our of work for exceding his allowable sick days which is forcing him into bankrupcy. what does that have to do with democracy or the title of this thread, 'health care in america'?

As I've gotten older I gotten more concerned with the health care
issues. Particularly now with all the debate.

As a single 50 year old woman without any insurance I am concerned.
I'm healthy and fit right now...god forbid any serious health problems arise for me, I'd be just screwed.

I don't have a fat savings account to cover thousands of dollars in care should I need it. Just dental concerns about broke me when all was out of pocket and or payments.
As far as health, I've learned to eat right, exercise, take supplements..whatever I can to stay healthy. That is no guarantee as we age.

Right now my 72 year old mother is recovering from a stroke...during her recovery, it's come to light that my 74 year old stepfather has a cancer mass in his stomach that is spreading and now chemo is needed.
They have sold both their vehicles and getting help from their church with their other bills so they can make health care payments to continue their care, the chemo process may break them..and they have medicaid.

Healthcare is, or should be a basic human right, it is not.

ladylid i'm sorry about your parents. mine went through much of what your's are going through so i feel your pain. i'm afraid you're doing all you can for them but you may want to re-think your feelings regarding health insurance for yourself. i'll not argue whether or not we have a right to healthcare provided by the government but most people in america have been lead to believe that if you cannot afford a policy with all the bells and whistles that are provided by employer group health plans or to government workers and you're not a qazillionair then there's no reason to spend anything on isnurance. nothing could be further from the truth. with a little research, i think you'll find that you can find a policy that will help easy your concerns about your financial situation and how it relates to a catastrophic illness or accident.

think about this. other than that an insurance policy pays for adequate health care when you need it, what are the two most important reasons anybody buys health insurance? how about this. you need a health insurance card to be admitted to a hospital for care AND if a catastropy does strike, it will keep you out of bankruptcy. notice i said nothing at all about regular doctor visits, prescriptions, lab tests, etc., but why do you care about those things anyway? you say you're healthy and wouldn't need a doctor on a regular basis anyway, right? just say 'right, john' and stay with me a minute.

could you, if you absolutely had to, come up with five or ten or fifteen thousand dollars if something catastrophic happened to you? i mean could you borrow some or all of that amount from family or friends? do you have an ira or 401k you could tap? it's an emergency so no penalty applies. is your credit score good enough that a bank would float you that much? could you sell some things??? because you can buy a very good blue shield/blue cross policy with a high deductible of 5, 10, 15, 20 or whatever number of thousands that would cost someone your age who doesn't smoke and is otherwise healthy a very low monthly premium. now this policy will not pay for you to see a doctor if you get the flu and it will do you no good at all if you break your arm riding your bicycle. that coverage could add four or five hundred a month to the premium but when you consider the cost of a typical doctor visit, 80-100 bucks, you'd have to catch the flue five times a year to break even on the premium. throw in likely copays and you'd pay for the broken arm before you'd pay the excess premium and the 20 dollar copays. not much as bells and whistles go as your neighbor may have but hey, we're talking about staying out of bankrupcy court, right? say right again.

i don't know how much you have available after expenses, lady, but if you could come up with say three hundred bucks a month to ease your concerns about becoming bankrupt if something happens knowing any hospital anywhere will take you in in an emergency, would you not somehow, someway get that health insurance card in your wallet? and if even three hundred is too much, would not a twenty five thousand dollar deductible be worth a couple hundred a month and maybe less? suppose you did have an accident that ran up a hundred and fifty grand in hospital, surgery, and doctor expense. you're back home recovering but otherwise healthy and happy to be alive and now you're looking at a bill for your share amounting to twenty five large and you cannot come up with it or anywhere near that amount. well i can guarantee you that if the hospital get's paid the hundred and a quarter from blue cross they are unlikely to go after you hard enough to put you into bankruptcy. they will not go to the trouble of suing someone of your means in order to get a court order to attach your wages or put a lien on your home or car. they'll simply write it off. you're credit will take a huge hit but who doesn't have that problem right now? and banks have been known to listen to a sad tale of sickness where they won't pay attention to a person who ran up cc debt to tour europe and buy a new bmw.

pm me if you'd rather not discuss this here but i'll bet i can help. goes for anybody who reads this.

Not true. My last job had unlimited sick leave And you automatically had 6 months paid sick leave insurance for free incase you got really sick. You could pay if you wanted insurance longer than that.

Thats verry typical of your generation and the way they think.

I am healthy now I am ok.

I have no kids I can get by on nicely on 50k

My last job, blah blah blah.

Do you have coverage now?

My GF's son plays football at collage he had a cheap school sponcored insurence that was cheaper than hers and she dropped him off her policy.

He was home two weeks and slipped on the deck and gave himself a concusion and he was inbetween insurences, big bill.

yea moms fault for not getting him back on her policy fast enough but she was broke. Social work doesnt pay all that much.

Am I covered now? No I just got back to the US and am job hunting. Yes my friends are having a hard time getting by on 60k. One just bought a 3 bedroom house and a mustang GT. Yes our pay increases with experience and according to Salary.com the average is over 100k by 8-10 years experience. So yes entry levels at 50-60k is a good job for a 22-26 year old.

And what are you talking about if I am healthy now? I was not talking medical insurance. I was talking about them paying your salary if you couldn't work for over 6 months. They offered great health insurance. They also paid 50% of your deductable for you. You had flex spending accounts. My insurance + dental + eye was about $60 a month.

Thats not bad I pay 80.00 a month for a family plan with vision and dental.

Our salary people have the same six month plan but after 6 months one can only hope your better. I have watched people die over the course of years.

I know young people have a hard time understanding that things are not about them or that each persons situation is differant but I think they would benefit by walking in someonelses shoes.

My neighbore died of Lukemia took about two years to finish him, fortunatly he was retired. People go through that in their prime working years and go bankrupt. dont understand why some people cant understand that.

I like how you say young people think this or that when the only point of my post was to contradict what you wrote before. That in America if you get sick you go bankrupt. I disprove it with an example from my life and all of a sudden I think a certain way because I am young. Its like if anyone doesn't agree with you they are ignorant. You could say the sky is purple and if I tried to say its blue I am ignorant.

No your single with no kids to feed and greatly inexperienced but your not ignorant. You claim to be a profesional and I am forced to take you on your word.

Maybe I should have said "the majority of bankrupties" poor choice of words on my part. Here are the facts.

This year, an estimated 1.5 million Americans will declare bankruptcy. Many people may chalk up that misfortune to overspending or a lavish lifestyle, but a new study suggests that more than 60 percent of people who go bankrupt are actually capsized by medical bills.

Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical.bills_1_medical-bills-bankruptcies-health-insurance?_s=PM:HEALTH

Dude, I don't know what planet you are from, but "a couple a hundred a month" is a fortune to somebody who takes home less than a grand.

And you bet your bippy a hospital will go after you for that extra
25 K. Hospitals in this country are a business. They have no feelings when it comes to money.

Then lets talk about my dad. (since apparently I am so inexperienced) Single income father with my mom who was always sick and couldn't work due to a head injury that also gave her a seizure condition. He had 2 kids one of which was diagnosed with a chronic medical condition at age 8. He paid all medical bills, had a nice house, bought cars for both his kids while they were in high school, etc. He is an engineer.

Medical care was far less expensive then and money was better. face it in every measurable way our quality of life has erroded.

My father was the only income in our family. He allways had two cars one new one for mom and he would drive the older to work and a few years later hewould buy her a new one and take the old.

He raised three sons and every year he did something major to improve the house, new kitchen top to bottem. Aluminum sideing, new driveway, swimming pool. camping trips in the summer. we then moved to a new house in the country. He was a union pipe fitter.

The economy and incomes were far better back then. We had a better distribution of wealth.

We had dental vision and medical care at no cost to himself.