Not to sound cynical but the consequence of this will be less than negligible.

USA! USA! USA! USA!

Beat chest. Wave flag.

Go bankrupt due to shitty health insurance.

I have an extremely awesome Doctor. I'm going to tell you about him.

He's an old country doctor who decided to move back to civilization to be close to his grandchildren before he dies. He doesn't accept any insurance, he charges $40 for an office visit, he has a deal worked out with a lab to give his patients extremely reasonable lab fees (for MOST lab work he can charge $30), he was a young doctor in vietnam, he's old and experienced enough to know how to do things without a lot of bells and whistles and very very conservatively, he tries his best to only prescribe generic medications (if any at all if he can avoid it because he despises what the pharmaceutical companies have become), for the $40 which comes out of your pocket - he will not overbook his schedule and spend a significant amount of time with you so you can both understand your health and your lifestyle and how those are related, if you are very sick and do not have $40 or can not afford any needed lab work - he will do what he can to work with you.

I asked him once about his odd practices and he guffawed at me and said that the insurance companies "dick me over first, so they can dick him over next". apparently, he thinks making an industry gambling on whether or not people will get ill is a terrible scam and then making the gambler, the bookie is a fucking fraud. he thinks socialized medicine won't work in this country, not because it's inherently evil but because "the people who make the plans don't do shit but give rimjobs to the people who have all the money, and the people who have all the money are only concerned with getting more of it".

so i kind of think this is an excellent way of doing things. i know it's a libertarian way of doing things. and doesn't help me if i need to go to the hospital. but if i can afford preventative care, have a physician to talk to me like i'm a human being about my lifestyle how to control it and how that translates into good health, and i can afford to go to the doctor when i get sick instead of letting it turn into pneumonia, then my chances of needing the hospital drop dramatically.

in short, i fucking looooove this man. i think he should teach med school and imbue his students with his experience, confidence, reason and utter lack of greed.

Part 2: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677//vp/40325965#40326035

Fascinating story. The extent of disinformation and untruth in American political discourse genuinely amazes me.

It's incredible that you can convince people to vote directly against their own interests.

@peggedbea's story is how the industry should run.

Man, I hate dealing with health and dental insurance corporations. What I don't get about them is why are they medical plans instead of catastrophic insurance? In other words, why do we think basic checkups (GP, gynecology, etc.) need to be covered under insurance? And the doctors hike their prices to offset the amount of back-and-forth they've to deal with when trying to get reimbursed by the insurance companies.

Today, I've been with an exposed root in my mouth from grinding my teeth at night, and I need a gum graft. I've been waiting almost a year for my dental insurance to clear the procedure. They even asked the dentist's office for an essay explaining why I needed the procedure. Are you kidding me? But today what other options do you have? Almost every doctor and dentist accepts insurance, and because they have to hike their prices accordingly, the people without insurance cannot afford simple preventative care and simple procedures.

@blankfist, the overhead involved in dealing with insurance companies is a factor in medical costs, but it's not even close to being the largest contributor, and eliminating health insurance would just trade the overhead of dealing with lots of disparate non-standardized insurers with dealing with collections from patients.

As for catastrophic plans, you should price compare them sometimes. For me, it was a savings of <10% in premium costs, and the deductible was so high that 100% of what little medical needs mintbbb and I have had over the last 5 years would have had to have been paid out of pocket. The net result is that the all-inclusive insurance actually costs me less, since it covered more than the difference in premiums.

This is all without even touching the core reasons why lefties like me want universal health care, which is that you shouldn't be having to weigh the value of even something like $40 versus potential health risks, because we don't think the lives of people who can't afford $40 are worth less than the lives of people who can.

@blankfist sorry about your teeth. When I had dental insurance, it was so shit all I could afford to have done was regular cleanings (I'm not even sure why I continued to pay for the insurance), I couldn't afford to fix any cavities. Now I don't have dental insurance and still can not afford to have 2 cavities filled. I just found out that there is a dental college in Dallas where I can go have dental work done on the cheap, So I'm going to call them after we get through Christmas.

Also, my son was born without any enamel on his teeth, he also has asthma and his medications cause tooth decay, so that poor baby's teeth were all fucked up for years. The dentist my insurance would pay for kept trying to sell me some coating for his teeth that was going to cost $1800 when it was all over and my insurance refused to pay. Needless to say, I was never able to afford it and his teeth got worse. I got laid off last year and lost my insurance so my kids now have medicaid. I took him to a new dentist, he ended up having to have oral surgery and the coating the other dentists were trying to sell me... apparently, it would not have fixed the problem but would have only made it worse. Also, the only problem I've had with medicaid in the year my kids have had it were the nightmarish bureaucratic issues.

>> ^kymbos:

Fascinating story. The extent of disinformation and untruth in American political discourse genuinely amazes me.
It's incredible that you can convince people to vote directly against their own interests.

This system is currently controlled by money. The minority that is still awake needs to take action and stop it.

What gets me about the whole situation is that right now, the economy is in the toilet and no matter what they seem to believe and say about indicators showing economic turn around never seem to actually cause a turnaround.

So we continue to limp along with all these broken systems, because "some day soon" it will be better. Yet when we have the chance to get a system in place that would improve our livelihood and the ability to work when work is available, the people representing us can't even get enough of their people to stop jerking off their corporate overlords to make it happen.

And while all this goes down, more and more people are forced onto the welfare system and receive BETTER medical care than they did when they paid out of pocket, because they don't have to worry about if they can afford thousands of dollars of out of pocket expenses to get things fixed that if dealt with earlier would have been simpler, cheaper, and safer procedures..with less recovery time and better long term results...and a whole hell of a lot less suffering.

Yet, we still can't see that this current system is just a losing battle, you either spend money on insurance you don't need 99% of the time and waste money on peace of mind and little else. Or you spend money on insurance which you need, but you can't actually afford to address the medical problems in a more permanent fashion. I've needed surgery on my hands for carpal tunnel for 5 years, can't afford it. Got a shoulder that is now screwed up, which may be partially due to pain radiating from my carpal tunnel or something else...it's just guess work until I can afford to eliminate causes or pay for high dollar specialists. Allergies that are under control most times, but can't afford allergy shots anymore to even out the reactions. Asthma where they won't cover the medications that work, and they discontinued the CFC versions that worked better. Bruxism issues, can't afford to get any kind of dental made appliance to deal with it, so using cheap over the counter guards......which cause my jaws to shift so now my jaws and teeth don't line up for a proper bite (they hit in the front). And now I probably need braces to fix that issue, which could have been addressed years with less expensive means more than likely. Have a cracked tooth from the bruxism that I can't afford to fix, cracked one prior to it think it ended up being about 800 dollars in the end.

It shouldn't be an issue of money when you have a medical need to have something fixed. It's in everyone's best interest to keep people able bodied, otherwise more and more people end up on disability and never come off of it.

I see a video of Justin Bieber. Is this the new Rick Roll?

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by radx.