Does charity begin at home?

[Moochie]

While I'm happy to think that Plan is all it says it is, I'm wondering if Mr. Randi is supporting charities closer to home as well as those sending their tender mercies overseas.

From what we here, in Australia, know of the U.S., there is deeply entrenched poverty among minorities and others, and that a great many people cannot even afford basic health care.

Here in Australia one need not travel beyond our borders to find people in abject need of succor. For that reason, what cash we can afford goes to those charitable organizations that help the truly needy in our local communities.

M.

 

[Freethinker]

From what we here, in Australia, know of the U.S., there is deeply entrenched poverty among minorities and others, and that a great many people cannot even afford basic health care.


M.

One should be careful of learning about the world from the media. Medicaid programs provide medical care for anyone without an income in the US. The biggest problem in health care is people who make enough to get by, but not enough to afford health insurance. For the most part, except for self esteem, you are better off to not work than to take a menial job.

 

[Moochie]

One should be careful of learning about the world from the media. Medicaid programs provide medical care for anyone without an income in the US. The biggest problem in health care is people who make enough to get by, but not enough to afford health insurance. For the most part, except for self esteem, you are better off to not work than to take a menial job.

I know exactly what you mean. Australia is following closely the example set by your country. As is the media.

Over here we have Medicare, ostensibly free. But if you need an operation, be prepared to wait several years. People actually die waiting. The queues at public hospitals are so long, many of those in need of treatment leave before they can be seen.

Long story cut short, the poor miss out. Plain and simple.

M.

 

[Moochie]

I know exactly what you mean. Australia is following closely the example set by your country. As is the media.

Over here we have Medicare, ostensibly free. But if you need an operation, be prepared to wait several years. People actually die waiting. The queues at public hospitals are so long, many of those in need of treatment leave before they can be seen.

Long story cut short, the poor miss out. Plain and simple.

M.

I should have added that I cannot abide by human beings being treated in this way. In a similar way, I cannot abide by any living being being treated this way.

Alas, there goes the economy!

M.

 

[valis]

Long story cut short, the poor miss out. Plain and simple.

M.

But the poor miss out on everything. I have better food in my 'fridge than poor people do. When I go to the Dr. with my private insurance, yes I get treated better than someone who has to use a public clinic. But they DO get treated. How do I know? I used to be one of them. I have been on both ends of the stick and I think it is safe to say that the image of starving Americans without health care is innacurate.

Then again the portrayl of the US, even in our own press is downright cartoonish.

 

[Moochie]

But the poor miss out on everything. I have better food in my 'fridge than poor people do. When I go to the Dr. with my private insurance, yes I get treated better than someone who has to use a public clinic. But they DO get treated. How do I know? I used to be one of them. I have been on both ends of the stick and I think it is safe to say that the image of starving Americans without health care is innacurate.

Then again the portrayl of the US, even in our own press is downright cartoonish.

Well, if it's a question of belief, then there can't be any rational debate, can there?

M.

 

[luchog]

But the poor miss out on everything. I have better food in my 'fridge than poor people do. When I go to the Dr. with my private insurance, yes I get treated better than someone who has to use a public clinic. But they DO get treated. How do I know? I used to be one of them. I have been on both ends of the stick and I think it is safe to say that the image of starving Americans without health care is innacurate.

Then again the portrayl of the US, even in our own press is downright cartoonish.

I've been down there too; spent time on welfare assistance due to disability. Yes, there is medical care available; but it's of generally low quality and not everything is covered. Particularly when it comes to medication. Some conditions and disabilities will not be adequately treated, and dental assistance is effectively useless for any but the most basic care. Recent cutbacks in the program have made it even worse.

All but the lowest level jobs provide some degree of insurance, even if it's just HMO care, which is better than medicare.

 

[luchog]

Over here we have Medicare, ostensibly free. But if you need an operation, be prepared to wait several years. People actually die waiting. The queues at public hospitals are so long, many of those in need of treatment leave before they can be seen.

Unfortunately, that appears to be the way with a lot of socialized medical programs, regardless of where you are.

The Canadian medical system isn't all that much better. Hospitals are consistently overcrowded, and they will often refuse to treat the elderly or terminally ill, so they can save the beds and funding for more worthwhile patients (what's the use in spending all that money on a 90 year old woman who is just going to die in a year or two anyway, right?). There are long wait times for many less common medical procedures, and Zarquon help you if you need, say, and MRI within the next three years.

Most Canadians who can afford to, travel to the US for anything beyond basic or emergency care. And there is a huge "brain drain" in the medical community as well; as a lot of newly graduated doctors and nurses emigrate to the US to work at better-paying positions, instead of staying in the Canadian health-care system.

 

[Moochie]

Here in Australia the present government is following the American example. Blame the poor and jobless for being so, and deny them basic sustenance and healthcare.

This is called "democracy," according to Bush, Blair, and Howard.

Billions of people not from those 3 countries, and countless others FROM those 3 countries, would beg to differ.

This charade cannot continue indefinitely.

M.

 

[epepke]

One should be careful of learning about the world from the media. Medicaid programs provide medical care for anyone without an income in the US. The biggest problem in health care is people who make enough to get by, but not enough to afford health insurance. For the most part, except for self esteem, you are better off to not work than to take a menial job.

As a person who is not making much money at all and had a lot of health problems over the past year, I can say the following:

1) Although it varies from state to state, typically you can't get Medicaid unless you have dependents or have been declared disabled.

2) If you show up at an emergency room, you will get treated.

3) If you need an operation, you will get it promptly.

4) Hospital stays are the biggest cost, but if you can't pay, they will often write it off. I got about $150,000 worth of treatment that I didn't have to pay for.

5) When they don't, they will set up a no-interest payment plan. I still owe around $27,000 that I will pay off over the next five years.

6) Physicians, anesthesiologists, etc. will cut deals. I only had to pay 50% of the bill for the attending physicians, and I got about $300 off the anesthesiologist bill. My surgeon charged as his fee $350 for a full cholycystectomy (the big scar kind) plus removal of a Hickman catheter. I paid $500 for a $1900 MRI session.

7) There are free clinics to get ongoing health care. There are two of them in this town of 150,000 people.

All in all, I've been well pleased. I was extremely ill, and they fixed me up, and I'm all better now. I owe money, and I'm going to be paying it off, though if worst comes to worst I can declare bankruptcy. There was never the slightest hint that I would get anything but the best available care for having neither insurance nor money.

Actually, I got worse care when I was still covered under insurance from COBRA, during an earlier bout with acute pancreatitis (which was improperly diagnosed). And they messed up one of my veins with the IV, and the nurses were sadistic, and whatever they gave me zonked out my brain.

But I went to the smaller hospital for my second and third bouts and the cholycystectomy. The only time I had to wait was five extra hours for surgery, but that was because they brought in an accident victim that the surgeon needed to attend to first, but he stayed late to do me, and it turned into a long one, because he couldn't get at it with a laproscopic procedure and had to do the big incision. It wasn't all peachy; one night my blood glucose level went down to 24 mg/dl, and I could tell I needed sugar and got up to look for the ginger ale that I had squirreled away and got the attention of the nurse. Also, once when they brought me up from a laproscopic exam, they forgot to plug in my buzzer so I couldn't buzz to get a proper gown. And the contrast for the CATscan made me so sick that I had to refuse surgery and do it later (which is why I have to pay for that stay). And also, but I knew this from my father: if any nurses are reading this, if you have a patient with a Foley up his weenus, put some petroleum jelly on the tube, because otherwise a clot builds up and if he gets an erection it's like something out of Robert Mapplethorpe, and I don't mean the flower pictures, either.

But still, that didn't kill me.

If there's a problem, it isn't with delivery of health care but with the insurance companies. I tried to get individual health insurance but couldn't, because a long time ago I had a condition that I don't even have any more and didn't cost that much to treat when I had it. Several direct calls to insurers and the services of six insurance agents couldn't find me anything. The only thing would have been those questionable, possibly fly-by-night "discount" deals, but I wound up getting a bigger discount than I would have simply by talking people down. (This surprised me, because I didn't think I had that skill, but I guess I do.)

 

[Amapola]

To reply to the OP - yes, I do believe that a person should do what they can to help out right in their own community.

I have explained elsewhere about one simple thing people can do: take clothes you do not wear to your local emergency room. They often have to cut people's clothes off to get to an injured area or to treat the person, and then they have no clothes. Our local emergency room goes through clothes pretty quickly, especially during the holidays when a lot of people are in the ER.

There are other things to do in a community, and I do believe that we _should_ help others near us. I'd love to be able to help people overseas too, and perhaps some day I will be able to, but in the meantime there are plenty of people right in my own neighborhood who could use a hand up.

Also, what Epepke says is true: if you show up in an emergency room here in America, they _MUST_ treat you. Some people will complain about not getting treated right away but this is typically due to triage: the most serious patients are treated first, and then the people with the "owies" are seen. I have heard of disgruntled people leaving the ER because they were not seen right away, but to the ER people, a person who can complain, walking up and down muttering, slamming doors etc. is probably not going to die right away. Whereas, a person coming in with suspicious chest pains, or bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound, will get whisked in to the doctor as quickly as possible.

 

[bruto]

As that old wise-ass Jesus H. Christ is reported to have said, "the poor we will always have with us," or something like that. I take this as not necessarily a callous remark, but a warning against the kind of moral triage that says you shouldn't do thing "b" because you haven't yet done thing "a." Every time you choose one of the very many good things you can do with your time or resources, you unchoose something else that someone, at least, can say is more important. We hope to choose well, and hope others do too, but at some point we do have to make a choice and just go ahead and do it.