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Health Care

reviewed by Lena

Lena
11/25/2009

Health Care 5

Update for those of you crying Constitutional Foul:
On the Constitutionality of a Health-Care Mandate

538 response to John Lofton's question: "Where in the Constitution, sir, do you see it authorized that Congress can be involved with "health care," or fund "health care"? I am asking here about the Constitution, not any court rulings. Thank you."

Posted November 24, 2009:
In another testament to the unacceptable inequities in our broken heath care system, if you're uninsured, you're more likely to die in the ER, according to a new study released by Harvard. That's right....I said die...about 80% more likely, in fact.

Posted October 22, 2009:
Apparently rape is the latest "pre-existing condition." What's next?

Join to vote! 6 Helpful / 0 Funny / 3 Agree / 1 Disagree
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Victor83 commented 40 days ago.
With Obama in office, a condition from which we all suffer.

Lena commented 40 days ago.
oh please.

GoinDownSlow commented 40 days ago.
@Lena Is rape supposed to be hypertext? There's no link.

Lena commented 40 days ago.
fixed...thanks GDS :)

abichara commented 40 days ago.
That just demonstrates how messed up the health insurance industry's underwriting practices are.

Either way, I'm sure we can all agree that the status quo isn't satisfactory?

Lena commented 40 days ago.
indeed.

Victor83 commented 40 days ago.
Abichara, I also agree with your statement.
However, that is no justification for Obama and the Dems to trample on the US Constitution and nationalize 1/6 of the US economy.

Victor83 commented 40 days ago.
Lena, to avoid an argument, I will forego commentary on the Huffington Post.
Even according to that article however, this woman was not raped.

Lena commented 40 days ago.
So if you use roofies it's not rape? Call me confused, Victor.

fitman commented 40 days ago.
Looks to me like she was raped by the perps who drugged her, and then raped by the insurance company(s).

No?

Victor83 commented 40 days ago.
Read the article again...then you won't be.

Lena commented 40 days ago.
Bonus points for condescension.

Victor83 commented 40 days ago.
Where is the police report?
Where is there any proof whatsoever that a rape occurred?

Victor83 commented 40 days ago.
BTW, I was not trying to be condescending. I was responding to an article (your evidence) that is shaky- at best.

abichara commented 40 days ago.
(Edited 40 days ago)
@ Victor: The status quo isn't working because of the inordinate amount of waste and overconsolidation we see in the health insurance industry today. Any health care plan that makes it through Congress must address these major problems.

As for the Democrat's plan, I'll keep an open mind, as the Baucus bill (the compromise legislation most likely to pass) is still in committee. I hear that they're planning on removing the mandate requirements for a couple million people who won't be able to afford the requirements, but I'm still not sure whether or not it will solve the problems stated above.

The bill doesn't necessarily "nationalize" the economy either, nor does it mean that we will have a public option or fully paid health care. As I've mentioned before, it's just a massive government subsidy to select health care providers in order to insure those who don't have insurance.

My concern with this is that it will raise prices, as has always happened with all mandate type of regimes. Either way, we still have to see what the final bill says. Then I will make my final judgement on the matter. This is still a work in progress.

Victor83 commented 40 days ago.
Abichara, the bottom line, to me anyway, is that the feds have no right to do this-none whatsoever- under the US Constitution.
Everything else is a side issue.

fitman commented 40 days ago.
http://tiny.cc/78ZjO

Ridgewalker commented 8 days ago.
(Edited 7 days ago)
I think there's something odd about that study. "The researchers couldn't pin down the reasons behind the differences they found." They suggest location, under-staffing, etc. As someone who has spent an inordinate amount of time in ERs and hospitals, I may have to believe that 'location' is a prime reason. Everytime I went in, I asked two questions. The first one was, "Do you know if I'm insured or not?". I asked everyone who came into contact with me...nurses, doctors, technicians...everyone. The answer was always "No". This led me to believe that it made no difference to them. I asked this because I wanted to know if there was any truth to this claim.

BTW, the second question I always asked was, "Are you gonna get a flu or swine flu vaccine?" 100% of the answers varied from "No", to "No way", to "Are you kidding?"

Lena commented 7 days ago.
The study was based upon data in the public record, which means they were limited to the information gathered by means not directly related to their subsequent study...this has its benefits (huge amounts of data provide results with less margin of error...and there's less of a chance for selection or collection bias), and detriments (they weren't in control over what data was collected limiting their ability to investigate cause).

FTA: "The researchers analyzed data on nearly 690,000 U.S. patients from 2002 through 2006. Burn patients were not included, nor were people who were treated and released, or dead on arrival.

In the study, the overall death rate was 4.7 percent, so most emergency room patients survived their injuries. The commercially insured patients had a death rate of 3.3 percent. The uninsured patients' death rate was 5.7 percent. Those rates were before the adjustments for other risk factors.

The findings are based on an analysis of data from the National Trauma Data Bank, which includes more than 900 U.S. hospitals."

Your anecdotal evidence seems to support that this isn't a problem related to caregivers themselves (which is somewhat expected, but at least reassuring), but more an effect of top-level decisions made for economic reasons (like transferring a patient to another hospital the moment they are stable).

Ridgewalker commented 7 days ago.
We all have heard the horror stories about the way people are treated in big city ERs. I asked that question for my own personal comfort level and it made me feel better knowing that these people were serious about their oaths. Owning that kind of a comfort level inspite of an obviously stressful situation is huge for me and it made me feel better than anything I could have read. And it wasn't just about me. It made me feel that people were treating everyone with respect and compassion. Our hospital is a jewel and they have what I have to assume is an unusual policy about people who can't pay their bill: they don't use collection agencies. They have an Angel program that picks up the tab for the uninsured and a free clinic twice a month, led by a rotating staff of volunteer Drs, nurses, PAs. And this is a small town where volunteering is still a highly valued commodity. I would imagine that this kind of structure isn't possible in larger metropolitan areas.
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