Defending the Truth

We do have many clinics throughout the country that provide free and/or reasonable medical checkups. Unless of course you live in a very rural area that only has one or two doctors. I can only speak from experience within a few states as I have not lived in all of them.
As an example for the level of care for the poor. I had to drive a nephew to the hospital at the first of this year. He had a tooth abcess that he had known was there for more than a year. So for more than one year he failed to address the tooth situation. Instead of spending three hundred dollars to get the tooth cared for he opted to let it go. It is not like over a years time he could have not saved the money or made payments in order to have this problem addressed.
He awoke one morning with a swollen face and went to a local dentist. This dentist gave him antibiotics and of course charged him $60.00. By then it was too late. Antibiotics would not take care of the problem. A few days later when I saw him he was on my parents couch very sick(in Idaho). One side of his face was almost doubled in size. The infection had gotten so bad his next and shoulder were also swollen with the infection. He looked as if his face was a balloon and the air had over flow into the neck and shoulder.

He had spoke with an oral surgeon at this point and made an appointment. Fact is this 24 year old was going to die if he was not treated.

I drove him 45 miles to this oral surgeon's office. The doc told him, "Well a thousand dollars down payment for me to treat you." This kid makes an average of maybe $20,000.00 a year. Out of that he pays for food, gas to get to work, repairs to keep a vehicle operating so he can work, general living expenses, child support and of course his form of entertainment (beer and the local pool hall one night of each week). He really has very little left over at the end of the day and not enough to support living in a house or an apartment of his own.

This doctor that tells him a $1,000.00 or go home. The doc has to pay for his own living expenses, a new porshe, a building to work out of, a staff to run his office, monthly office utilities, insurance in case someone sues him, insurance for his building, a loan payment for the furnishings of his upscale office and his student loans. So he needed a $1,000.00 down payment to begin treatment. The doc sends my nephew out to the car to tell me he needs money or else. My nephew asked me what do I do? My parents on the other hand where in Utah at the University hospital. Dad had an aortic anuersym and was in major surgery at the time. Dad a twenty year cancer survivor from bladder cancer. Doctors say he got from most likely working at a Nuke plant in his working history.
I tell my nephew go back in there and tell the doc simply you do not have it and I will be driving you to the emergency room.

The doctor had a sudden change of heart. He gave the nephew an admittance slip to the hospital.

The thing is the emergency room would not and could not have turned my nephew away. Here any hospital that was built with federal funds must by law treat any emergency situation regardless of the ability to pay.

Is the nephew a bum, no not totally. Bright enough to work but not bright enough to realize you need to take care of health issues asap. Can he afford an insurance plan that charges $350.00 a month? Of course not he can barely keep his child support paymnets made and the employers he has are surely not going to pay for an insurance plan for him. He has little to no highschool education. His mother was a street walker and he was thrown out of her house at fourteen. He has three children in three different states. Employers simply want his youth and braun to exploit for their own gain and many in this society would call him a bum or no good.

Isn't Canadian healthcare free?



Ha. So good healthcare will lead America to "Socialism" which, in their eyes, is most likely much different from the real definition? I say this because health insurance can, in the longrun, do nothing but good, and free healthcare is certainly positive, and though I don't support much of anything being compulsory, who'd turn down free or affordable healthcare?

Very true, there is currently no affordable healthcare. And I boldface that word to emphasize just what it is they are depriving people of, or simply taking a huge chunk of their money to obtain.

I wouldn't call him a bum. But then again, he has made a few mistakes and bad decisions. Should a person who did find a way to be successful in todays economy be responsible for all his healthcare. And indirectly be responsible for his 3 kids? I have serious issues with that. To me "universal healthcare" rewards mediocrity and penalizes people that work hard and sacrifice to provide for thier own families. My wife works 50 hour weeks sometimes to get what we have. She only has a GED and is managing people that have college degrees but have no work skills. She busts her friggin ass. I just don't know where you balance rewarding "bums" vs punishing those that work hard, sacrifice, and make better decisions in life.

Truth is he never had a chance. See others used his mother for their own sexual preferences and desires. He grew up in an enviroment in S. CA with very little chance to succeed.

I also worked very hard and I made a few bad decisions along the way when I was young. Some of our decisions when we are young are due to the circumstances we grew up in. Does this mean when I grew up I should suffer for the rest of my life?

In years later I employed others and provided help with their medical care and insurance when I could afford it.

We are our brothers keepers whether some like it or not.

"The Hill-Burton Act passed in 1946 obligated public and nonprofit hospitals built with, or receiving federal funds to provide emergency medical care."

Now it is 2007. Sixty-one years ago. It is time to reorganize the country's medical venues.

The average hospital directors salary and I'd bet the majority of these directors used federal student loans to get their college education.

Hospital directors average In the United States $90,846 $104,464 $120,353

In some places the venues simply need to be streamlined.

For instance in the small community we lived in for the last ten years. They have a hugh hospital but no full time doctor. If someone is admitted to that hospital chances are they might not survive it. The care there is poor to none. My grandson broke his arm. He sat there for three hours before my daughter got there. His dad a not so bright (yet an emergency medical technician) person took him there.

They did not even have ice on the little guy's arm to help prevent swelling. When my daughter arrived she waited another forty-five minutes for their so called doctor to arrive. within that forty-five minutes she got the full scoop on, how what, when, where and how long he had already sat there waiting for a doctor. Plus she demanded an ice pack. The staff was unbelievable. She practically had to scream bloody murder after nicely requesting an ice pack for his broken arm in order to get one measely ice pack.

She finally said enough and told them she was taking him to their family doctor (a forty minute drive). They told her she could not take him from that hospital and threaten to call the law on her for child abuse. Wait he had been sitting there for damn near four hours with a broken arm waiting for treatment. Who was the abuser?

The whole point is there is so much incompetence and corruption throughout the system even you and your family is not gauranteed adequate health care no matter how much money you have or how good your insurance is.

BTW that same grandchild a few years back acheived Presidential Award for Excellence. Since his mom was on hard times at one point in time does he deserve less than you in medical care?

Love and care for one another.

I'm sorry,I don't buy the "didn't have opportunities" BS. I grew in the projects with a single mother and there were times we had powdered potatoes for dinner. I know there are poor people out there.
But again, I still don't see where we need to tax those that DIDN'T make those decisions heavier. I am my brothers keeper in that I see the government providing police protection, a military, roads, a basic education, and other infrastructure. But there comes a time when "my brother" needs to get off his ass and figure out what the hell is going wrong in his life. And if he has made enough "bad decisions" that renders the rest of his life pretty muh "crap" that's really not my problem to alleviate.

But that's just me.

Then I can be thankful you are not my judge.

You did not say your mother was a street prostitute hooked on drugs, selling her body every day to every scum bag that would come along to give her a buck. And when you needed something from mom you would have to figure out which street corner she was standing on that day.

Plus the fact when some rich asshole comes along and wipes you out, your policy of being a self made person won't gain you diddly-squat. I know I made those millions. Helped others along the way every chance I had and paid the price for people just like you! Both emotionally and financially.

You may think want you like but you are no better than anyone else out here in the struggle to survive this world.

When you fail to have compassion for those like my nephew you are the first one to bitch when young adults like him join hate groups. Then you would insist that infrastructure of police and government that you do agree with get out there and stop the hate they feel for people like yourself.

I paid my fair share of taxes too! Now some assholes came along and stole what I stayed on call 24/7 for all those years for. It was normal every day hypocrites that allowed it, encouraged it and helped it happen. Truthfully since it was stolen from me, the next time I get sick your precious tax dollars will be footing the bill. I will not work my ass off put up with tons of shit again and again to have some asshole steal it and a bunch of hypocrital snots such as yourself tell me that they are better than my family because.........

I don't know what happened to "you". And it must have hurt "you" tremendously. Each and every situation is different. But as a group I am against the idea of "universal health care". I'm not being elitist. But just as you are trying to protect your family, I'm trying to protect mine too. And in "my" opinion, I like the situation I have right now and would not like to change it. Sorry.

You don't understand you already have universal health care in the United States. It is in every hospital out there built or recieving federal funds. The federal government and the states have Welfare that also pays these bills. That is your tax dollar.

What is not out there is a reasonable way to preclude the very expensive cost of the abuse of these emergency calls that are utilized today by some of the poor. Some emergency rooms encourage the use of their facilities so they may collect that tax dollar. (spend it or lose it) It is already subsidized health care. Tax dollars are paying for zip in many cases. Directors and CEO's who could truly give a darn whether your tax dollar is currently being spent wisely or not are only interested in keeping their comfortable positions just like you.

Personally in looking at the whole picture. Consider the whole cost and what is currently not working. There can be improvements made to the current system.

Every problem out there that others have effects you, whether you know it, realize and understand, care or not care.

From what you say you are drawing disability. Why are you on disability?