Why is emergency medicine different than police, fire, and military?

I get that. I was thinking the same as I was typing it. It's easy enough to assume somebody could sit at home on their lazy ass and let a minor illness become life threatening. The only solution I can think of, is to try to properly educate people and to provide a public option source for the destitute to get basic care.

 

You mean like they used to do at the local health departments before self esteem became all the rage?

 

Contradiction.

(ie, pretty much the exact argument and definition that Pro-Universal Health Care people use. And you personally, directly and clearly expanded "emergency medical services to include "kids with cancer".

That IS the definition of Universal Health Care.

Contradiction. Just saying. Not going to try and convince you of your flawed logic, but I will point out some of your absolutely direct and complete contradictions.

 

I am with you here. My comment, tongue-in-cheek though it was, had more to do with a previous thread discussing health care and its relationship to constitutional rights, in which Mr. Jr. opined with similar confidence. It's nice to know that complex things aren't complex, if someone says so.

 

Every definition I've seen of UHC includes all kinds of silly shit like sex changes, penile enlargements, etc. They also do nothing serious to correct the major flaws in the current system, they just dump lots of tax dollars into it. Also, by definition, UNIVERSAL includes everyone, with no choice. That would never work for the same reason communism fails. Everything would revert to the lowest common denominator and there'd be no incentive to succeed or innovate. A private option would have to remain to provide for innovation, growth, competition, etc.

 

You can eat, or you can die.

You can seek shelter from the elements, or you can die.

Shall I continue?

What you're proposing is socialized medicine. Perhaps you're couching it in socialized "emergency" medicine to assuage your conscience, but the fact remains that your beef is with needing something you may not be able to pay for, and dammit you deserve to have it because otherwise you might die.

Slippery slope? Sure, why not?

Gender dysphoria. If I don't get my dick lopped off and a sweet ass virginia installed at no cost to me, I might get depressed and tell a cop to shoot me.

Heaven forbid, people plan for the inevitable, insure against the improbable, and deanwith the consequences of their decisions.

 

Perhaps a return to common sense should be on the table as well? We already do, and always will, provide basic food and shelter to those unable to provide it for themselves. I'm tired of the extremists dictating policy for us all. Somebody needs to step and say, "no, you're not going to die if you don't get your dick cut off". Will people try to abuse the system? Yes. Will people succeed? Yes. Will it be perfect? No. Will it be better than the shitshow we have now? It can't get much worse.


BTW, you still haven't answered my question. Why is it okay to remove basic free market principles from the healthcare process? You wouldn't be okay with going to a restaurant or grocery store and ordering something labeled "food" with no price on it, no idea what it is, what it tastes like, or if it's going to actually satiate your hunger. Especially if you got a bill after the fact and it was $20,000!

 

Insurance has killed the free market in healthcare. We have also done a stellar job of destroying the lines between unable vs unwilling and wants vs needs. If you want it, you must need it. Whatever it is, do it, do it, do it 'til you're satisfied.

 

Yes, it would have killed me.

No to the rest.

 

When have I ever defended it?

Last time I had a "medical procedure" performed, I asked how much it would be. They told me around $250. I asked if they wanted payment right now. They said no, we'll bill you.

Bill was for over $500. Told them I'd pay them the $250 I was told to expect and they can eat the rest, or else they are more than welcome to sue me for it.

They took the $250.

Your analogy still fails though. You don't have to eat at a restaurant. Likewise I didn't need this procedure performed, it wasn't life threatening.

 

And that is acceptable to you?

 

My analogy is stronger than yours. You do have to eat. My shortfall is assuming that you're unable/unwilling to grow your own food and have to buy it somewhere. This was on purpose, because very few people are able to perform lifesaving medical care upon themselves.

And it may have been life threatening. I've never heard of somebody dying from getting a strap-on stuck in their ass, but you might have been the first!

 

Yes. It's costing me $45 a month after insurance.

Now, the follow-up back home,which I did choose (and would have killed me or cost me the leg if I didn't), is costing me $140 a month.

Better question is, why did the hospital in Indiana release me if I still had problems?

 

How much is it costing including how much the insurance is paying? Because you're also paying for that, albeit indirectly. That's part of the trick, making you think that a large percentage is free because it's covered by insurance.

I don't know enough about your particular case to say what happened in Indiana. If you're stable and don't need round the clock care, they usually try to get you out. Hospitals are nasty places. I've known many elderly people who've gone in for something minor, contracted pneumonia or staph, and died.

 

The hospital at which I'm a frequent flyer just installed a high-tech sign on the road that tells you what the wait time is in the ER.
The competition is actually there.
The whole industry sucks due to politicians screwing around with it for years.
Doctors vary in their abilities and personalities, but I've found that most care very much about the job they do for the patient.
The same goes for nurses and PA's and NP's.
It's the system they're forced to operate in that is messed up.

 

That's why your analogy fails.

No one is obligated to feed me.

No one is obligated to remove Igor the Massive Dong from my rectum.

I can pay for food, or grow my own.

I can pay a proctologist to reach his arm up my ass, or send my own fist up there to grab it.

Life threatening situations don't change the fact that no one is obligated to give me a chance of survival.

 

Manchester

 

You guys are still at this? Is there a single person here who honestly admits that they even have the slightest inclination to change their mind?

The OP doesn't want "Universal Health Care". He doesn't want "Government Health Care". He doesn't want "quotas". He doesn't want the "Insurance Companies" involved. He wants everyone who "wants it" to have care, such as (his words) a kid getting cancer treatment or a broken leg, but doesn't want it called "Universal". He's said that we provide food and shelter to those unable to provide it for themselves (which is also untrue, btw - we provide "assistance" to "many" who do not have the ability as well as to many who DO have the ability, but certainly not to EVERYONE who does not have the ability). He said explicitly that that "kind" of care to him is a "right", but denies that it's in any way "socialized medicine".

The only "solution" acceptable to the OP would have to involve unicorns farting magical jelly beans that would cure all ailments for free, and was not funded or managed by the government, and for which the FDA had absolutely no oversight to enforce safety standards but that the unicorns would fart only GOOD magic jelly beans out of the boundless kindness of their heart.

This is a thread that ought to just die.

 

Lots of hospitals compete on wait times, customer service, and quality of care. None of them compete on price because the industry standard is "as much as possible". I've already clarified what I meant by "most doctors are hacks" as a broad stroke descriptor about the system as a whole and them not being willing/able to break out of it.

 

Or perhaps you could just stay out of it, because everyone else is doing just fine having a reasonable discussion and you're bringing NOTHING of any use to it.