At least once a week, usually twice, I go visit a guy I’ve known for many years. He’s an older gent, who lived a very active life until he had a stroke some years ago; now he’s in a nursing home.
He’s in a pretty good home in a good area; they take good care of him, even though he’s a medical-assistance patient, meaning that his own money ran out long ago and the VA and Social Security are now paying his rent there. He gets physical therapy at least once a week, and goes to the VA Medical Center at Fort Snelling at least twice a month. He’s lucky he’s a veteran, and gets a VA stipend; otherwise, he’d probably just be warehoused in some dump somewhere. As it is, he has access to a computer, which he uses for e-mail (the web is beyond him at present — but then again, it always was), which is one of his lifelines to the wider world.
During the health care debate, I’ve been thinking of this guy a lot, and how the Veterans Health Administration has done such a superb job, both with him and with so many other veterans. I know another guy, another veteran with health problems, though none as severe as my friend’s. He visits Fort Snelling a lot for his medical issues, and he — a dyed-in-the-wool Republican — cannot say enough good things about them; he very much favors opening up the VA system to cover everyone, because he knows it would cost less in the long run and provide better care for all Americans. I wish other Republicans — and Blue Dogs — felt the same way. Instead, they back a system where private insurer UnitedHealth rakes in huge profits even as fifty million Americans are uninsured — and which owns the Lewin Group, the allegedly "impartial" research firm whose data is used by the Republicans and other reform foes.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..02216.html
So this study the GOP is touting as Expert and Impartial is a bought and paid for hack study? GOP, GOP, GOP
If you can’t win an argument on the facts making facts up to win just makes you look Desperate, and Crazy.
Desperate and Crazy the favorite perfume of Mark Sanford’s Mistress all the GOP ladies wear it even Laura Bush after all to win a herd creature you must smell like a herd creature to gain their trust.
Favorite GOP’er words – impartial, fair and balanced.
This guy I know has cancer. He’s not getting treated for it. He has no medical insurance and he owns a farm. The only way he can qualify for care is to lose the farm, which has been in his family 4 generations. He wants to leave it to his nephew who helps him farm and is dedicated to a farm way of life. Only 2 people know and we are bound to keep the secret. This is horrible. Criminal. There are thousands of cases like this. We are not a civlized nation.
Lets see if Harry and Nancy have the Stones to make the Senate and House GOPers and Blue Dogs apologize on the House and Senate floor for quoting a study from a Hack Group convicted of taking the Government’s money!
Whats next for the GOP and Blue Dogs will they quote the wit and wisdom of Charlie Mansion? Will they ask Mitt Romney how to reform Hedge Funds so they make a profit ( Mitt has been selling his mansions recently Clear channel is laying off people, and buying Home Depot right before housing prices collapsed I’m sure was not a good idea).
This post reminds of an old saying: “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”
Specially, “progressive” so-called “public option” advocates would like to co-opt the rhetoric on the evil of a system of health care based on profit, while not actually removing the profit from the system (the only plan on offer that does that is single payer). And “progressive” so-called “public option” advocates would like people to believe “public option” will be a Medicare- or VA-like system, but the CBO numbers give the lie to that bait and switch argument on enrollee numbers alone (never mind the quality of coverage).
So, please, save the crocodile tears on saving lives for rubes who don’t pay attention. If saving lives were the priority, so-called “public option” wouldn’t be starting in 2013 (and would ramp up a little bit faster than 10 million covered by 2019).
The only way to get to heaven is to abolish the system of for-profit health care. But “progressives,” along with the health insurance CEOs, and the Democratic leadership — and St Augustine — all say “But not yet, Lord.” Not yet.
NOTE Here’s Rep. Anthony Weiner’s article on how to bring single payer to a vote in committee. Here’s a post with numbers to call to support Weiner.
That is the kind of story the Dems need for their tv ads I assume the Dems will put out tv ads? After all if we lose this then ending the wars is the only big issue we have left.
Fail on both those issues….
There are a lot of people who had to sell all their assets to get the care they (or one of their family members) needed.
That’s why we need health insurance coverage for everyone.
Well, what we need is health care for everyone.
Since insurance companies have the incentive to deny care to people for profit, health insurance is not the same as health care.
That’s why reinforcing the power of insurance companies with a guaranteed market through a mandate is problematic.
We have some time it seems before a vote I say if we get the poll numbers supporting National Healthcare higher we punish the GOP and the insurance industry.
We tell them you should have taken our first deal. Then we pull the current bill and make it more to Our liking.
The VA is pure Socialized medicine and I can attest to how good it has been to me. Many of the Doctors there formerly practiced at the civilian Clinic which I used when I had Employer Provided Health Insurance. I recently had surgery and it was performed by a surgeon from a large, supposedly excellent, institution near the VA hospital. I fully endorse your dyed-in-the-wool Republican’s suggestion.
Yes, many are in the same predicament and it’s WRONG.
(Which is why “public option” starting in 2013 and only ramping up to 10 million covered in 2019 is such a concern. It seems a rather slow glide path upward when there are so many stories just like this one.)
Maybe some before and after shots are needed all the GOPers, Blue Dogs, Media talking Heads who hailed Bush’s Healthcare idea the one that ended up costing tax payers more cash.
We get them on tape and then we compare what they are saying now about Obama’s plan costing too much.
Then we say as long as government cash is going to the insurance companies its all good!
I wonder if Bobo ever gives any speeches about free market insurance to any insurance or healthcare groups for pay?
I don’t agree with you. Your solution, single payer, is optimal and we can work toward that. What is unacceptable to me is throwing out the House bill, which opens up the possibility of insurance to the uninsured and which opens up Medicaid to more people. OT this morning the President’s Council of Economic Advisors released this report on the dilemma of small businesses as they seek to insure their employees and on the solutions created to solve this problem in the President’s healthcare reform plan.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/admi…..usinesses/
Your friend’s attitude towards universal health care is perhaps the minority opinion, at least among the professional vets. I remember a certain VA Secretary was ousted from the Reagoon regime because he suggested unused space in vets hopitals might be utilized by civilians. The VFW and the American Legion and their ilk have always carried two banners: (1) Socialism for vets, and (2) down with socialism everywhere else. The VA has long had a welfare program for indigent vets they call “Pension,” and some of the clients accept the checks, plus similar handouts from Social Security (SSI) and rage against welfare chislers and other commies.
A good example, one among many, was spotlighted during the recent Pox Noise teabagger tussle. One shlub holding a placard crossed himself by wondering who was going to pay for all this gumint debt. “My children?” But the organizing “principle” was cutting taxes, and that means ever more debt for his children, and guess which side of the equation he’s contributing to. Yep, he don’t pay taxes, he says, he’s on a VA Pension.
Ever bark back at canines in parked cars, like Jack Nicholson did in Five Easy Pieces? That’s the nature of debate in America.
“So Eisenhower is opposed to “socialized medicine.” He’s never paid a doctor’s bill in his life.” – Harry S Truman
Social mobility is, in fact, harder than portrayed in the “Living the American Dream” myth. It is one reason military service is a far bigger deal than in, say, national-health-care model Finland, where military service is mandatory for all males (there is a civil alternative). Nobody on Finnish TV starts an interview with “First, I’d like to thank you for your service…” My point, there are a lot of linkages and de-linkages ignored in the effort to get some sort of a health care bill, the most obvious being that you have to do something to demonstrate your commitment to the American Dream before you deserve to be eligible for coverage. This means the discussion is always backwards. Elsewhere in the developed world the message is: “You need to be healthy to contribute to society.” That’s why the health meme and bellicosity meme play so happily together in the US (and why nobody actually gives a shit that 20% of all homeless people are veterans). Health is treated as a scarce resource like oil. Does that mean the nation needs to wean itself off of health? Ultimately, proponents of a rational system that puts the health of society first have already ceded the linguistic high-ground in the health debate. Insurers and their media strategy people understand all they have to do is play to the American Dream narrative and they win. Moreover, if you are a Republican or a Blue Dog, you don’t really want to be labelled as voting against the Dream. Obviously, models that deliver better care at half the price are out there, but aside from a small group of wonks who may have had Fulbrights and have actually had first-hand contact with superior health care systems, we face the dilemma of the movie Waking Life of not trying the light switch to test if we are in a vivid dream. Waking Life’s Guy Forsyth offers two lines that might help here:
Phoenix Women
Congrats. This is the first thread here at the Lake that is solely focused on the “expansion” of the VA’s Medical and Hospital Systemic.
The current Democratic Leadership Component in Congress is correct in there aspirations that “any change” to what will be approved in Congress, cannot take place during a ten-year period.
However, Chicano military vets have been advocating for many years that with an ‘expanded’ VA and accessible to everyone, will eventually occur in the years to come. And when Chicanos have the requisite votes to “move” this Idea, it will become Law.
Here in Phoenix, a recent debate was held on the Horizon Program, a PBS entity, and one of the three doctors raised the quesiton of “flooring versus ceiling” in terms of medical care delivered. So, folks here out in the hinterlands are ‘talking’ VA lingo, but our members in Congress are more concerned with their campaign donors than they are with our constituent “demands”. As to Arizona’s congressional delegation, only Rep. Raul Grijalva of Tucson, seems to be attempting to accomplish the impossible or second of the three public options readily available to Democrats, and that is of course, Single Payer. Obama is still tightly wrapped around the neo-liberal approach and which is an insurance exchange. And for ease of understanding, “expanding” the access of the VA is that third public option.
And despite all the political palaver, the left-of-center has yet to realize that with an expanded VA entity, the middle class, military vets, low income and seniors would reach around each other and collectively, craft a ‘new’ political agenda that subverts the campaign donors of these members of Congress and the Oval Office. To wit, Consumers will rule the roost when it comes to ‘medical care delivered’, and that’s just for starters. Moreover, the neo-cons and the neo-libs will find themselves out on the street asking themselves, “What the hell happened to us?”
Jaango
As someone who as used the VA I agree that their healthcare is top rate. I went to the VA facility despite having BCBS backed up by tricare. However, everyone working at the VA is a government employee. I seriously doubt that there could ever be acceptance of a system where all of the physicians would be willing to be government employees.
Rep. Cantor Can’t Be Bothered With The Details | Media Matters …Eric Cantor wrote a lengthy statement on why the Democratic proposals for …. The Lewin Group Is Owned By Ingenix. NPR reported that “the Lewin Group, …
http://www.mccainsfreeride.com/factcheck/200907130006 – Cached – Similar
Let’s look at the dyed-in-the-wool Republican guy’s story – as the line in the Sesame Street song goes, “one of these things is not like the others” – what makes him a different breed of Republican? HE’S A VET.
Ah……he’s a Vet. He actually served and has experienced ‘government run healthcare’.
How many Repubs who are fighting against health care reform are Vets?
How many Blue Dogs that are fighting against health care reform are Vets?
Let’s see now…how do we find true republicans (rather than Republicans who are really right wing conservative authoritarian misogynistic warmongers in disguise)? Find vets who have experienced VA healthcare.
There’s gotta be a way to transfer ownership now so that the man doesn’t lose every thing he’s worked for.
The VAMC I use, in Temple, TX, is associated with the Texas A&M Medical School. I understand that is the case with many of the VAMCs, so they have the benefit of slave labor. Specialists come in from private Hospitals in the area for consultations and surgery. Patients are also farmed out to the local hospitals, I was sent to one of them for an EEG. I mentioned in my earlier post that several Doctors there had relocated from a private group practice, which suggests the compensation is reasonable.
EXACTLY! And I’ve started saying this to my red-neck, neocon, Korean-vet father-in-law, who rants on and on about the dreaded “S” word.
The MILITARY is socialized, for heaven’s sake. So all these gun-totin’, pro-war, “these colors don’t run,” dyed-in-Conservative-red-wool patriots ARE Socialists.
It occurred to me and I’m sure someone has brought this up but I haven’t read it yet that the money that has been spent on the drug war probably could have given us universal health care eons ago.
Flu season is coming if the Swine Flu created at an American hog farm in Mexico that sold meat to America. Gets going big well when the GOP complains about the expected wait for healthcare if everyone got it.
Well we should ask them do you want the guy cutting up the meat you eat to have a shot? What about the Fast food worker coughing on your food to poor to take a sickday off.
Your Nanny? Housekeeper?
Point taken! I’m listening to the odious Eric Cantor gloating about the Healthcare Bill this very moment. Exhibit A…
Having worked at VA for 16 years and been a recipient of care there on 2 or 3 occasions I can attest to the quality of care veterans receive. That is not to say there aren’t a few bad apples in the system but I think that’s true anywhere. The only reason single payer is not on the table is because of the insurance industry. Now that the industry’s biggest supporters in Congress have managed to delay a vote on what is prolly right now a terrible bill we’ve got the chance to really give our congressmorons an earful when they come home on “vacation.” I got their vacation right here.
The use of local slave labor assets is a wise move economically and where I went there were none. The use of specialists is also good but they are not government employees. I doubt that many would relish the thought of becoming gov’t employees.
Lets say the Swine Flu becomes a pandemic we closed schools here in Washington. Suppose we close more schools Parents voters will ask why as the arrange daycare or stay home to watch the kids.
Parents will be focused then on Healthcare, they will be paying attention to the issue! Lets see the GOP win under those circumstances.
Under those circumstances we should throw the current bill out and ask for more.
Agreed this GOP meme we kill the bill if we delay it should be a disaster for them.
My goal is to pile one disaster atop another for the Rethugs. I want these motherfuckers out of our lives.
Same Here!
Instead, they back a system where private insurer UnitedHealth rakes in huge profits even as fifty million Americans are uninsuredwhich owns the Lewin Group
This tells you everything you need to know. They don’t give a rats ass about the people who “elected” them. They care about the people who support them. We should all remember this come election time. All these fuckers who couldn’t care less about us need to go.
Right. On.
I want Russ Feingold to be considered the “centrist” that he is. People often point to the halcyon days of the 1990s and how great everything was (an illusion in many respects however), but I like to point out that the 90s were so much better than the 80s and 00s with just miniscule Liberal policies. Clinton was the best Repub President we ever had since he was a Centrist Repub, and look how much things improved.
Imagine if we have some REALLY Liberal policies then! It would be a freakin uptopia.
Yes, hopefully the Repub party will go the way of the Whigs, and the two dominate parties that fight it out every election will be the the Socialists (Bernie Sanders) and the Democrats (Obama).
The Swine flu does not have to kill people just send them to the hospital think about it. Insurance companies invest the money they get they took a big hit under Bush.
If large numbers of insured Americans get sick and go to the hospital they will need to cough up some cash they might not have. (I do not trust their numbers)
They can go Katrina on America and make Doctors and Hospitals wait for their cash.
They could very well be forced to ask Obama for a Government bailout right after spending millions to deny Americans Healthcare. Politically of course no government Healthcare means no insurance bailout. In fact I think the Private Insurance Companies that don’t want to be Regulated step up and bailout AIG. (American Insurance Group).
Or we can ask for our cash back let it go under and watch it take out the Private Insurance Companies.
I would like to see the rethugs perceive of 2006 & 2008 as the good old years but we have a bunch of DINOs that need to go too.
Read yesterday that we might expect 40% of Americans to get swine flu !
PW
Thanks for caring enough to visit this vet, I can only imagine how much it means to him. It’s funny how the VA is held up as a model now. When I came home 40 years ago you wouldn’t have wanted to be near any of those joints.
OK GULP! thats allot if the GOP had a brain they would take Obamas deal now. 40% of Americans get sick then suddenly everyone will be talking national healthcare.
My theory that when the voters pay attention to issues we win gets super charged when 40% of Americans all at the same time suddenly have a reason to focus on healthcare.
After that large a number of people get sick we should be able to pass anything!
Well if Harry and Nancy had a Spine we could.
@19
Sorry for the drive by comment upthread. I had to take a LONG phone call and couldn’t finish my post.
Eric Cantor,the majority whip has a history of tunnell vision-and apparently its a family affair.
Check out Eric Cantor’s wife on Google sometime.
Also, John McCain is NO friend to vets,that’s for sure-especially the “
missing POW’s. Votevets had a LOT of info on his smarmy doins. The Nation did a superior piece on this subject last year.
Here’s an interesting piece from today’s Crooks and Liars
“Of course, the Republican plan as in 1993 is to stop health care reform at all costs to prevent an enduring Democratic majority. Bill Kristol, who told Republicans 16 years ago that there was “no crisis” justifying health care reform then, now simply calls on his party to “kill it.” With spinmeisters Frank Luntz and Alex Castellanos supplying the talking points that a supposed “government takeover of health care” is “too much, too fast, too soon,” obstructionists like Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe boasted his party would “stall” President Obama’s health care initiative to ensure a “huge gain” in the 2010 election. In a nutshell, the GOP is proposing to extend the status quo for a nation gripped by a collapsing health care system.
Here, then, is the Republican 10-Point Plan for Health Care:
1.50 Million Uninsured in America
2.Another 25 Million Underinsured
3.Employer-Based Coverage Plummets Below 60%
4.Employer Health Costs to Jump by 9% in 2010
5.One in Five Americans Forced to Postpone Care
6.62% of U.S. Bankruptcies Involve Medical Bills
7.Current Health Care Costs Already Fueling Job Losses
8.94% of Health Insurance Markets in U.S Now “Highly Concentrated”
9.Dramatic Decline in Emergency Room Capacity
10.Perpetuating Red State Health Care Failure
For the details and data behind each, continue reading.
Crooks and Liars
[mod note: linky]
@40Crooks and LiarsJul 25, 2009 … Progressive online community featuring news and current affairs and offering video of news events.
crooksandliars.com/ – 14 minutes ago – Cached – Similar
The VA’s IT system is first rate; it saves money and lives. With single payer, we could expand that proven system everywhere. Google might not like that, but so what? They’re only a campaign contributor.
Bank Employing GOP House Leader’s Wife Got Bailout Bucks – ProPublicaJan 23, 2009 … House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, a rising star in the Republican party, … stock in a private banking company that employs Cantor’s wife. …
http://www.propublica.org/…/ban…..cks-090123 – Cached – Similar
Unfortunately, when it comes to UHC, I take the longer view since I am sufficiently confident that in the long term, the VA will the ’sytemic’ for medical care delivered. And how with this come about?
I am in the process of writing a manuscript that should be published later this year. It’s title will be: “Shaping” the Chicano Vision for Empowering the Individual. And one of the chapters is focused on laying out the platform from whence the VA becomes “actualized for UHC. This Chapter is titled, The Academic-Military Draft. And for Chicanos, the acquisition of education is supremely important. Of course, this book with be panned as more “Ethnic Pep Talk” and which was visible recently in Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing and relative to her comment on the “wise Latina”. And if you’re attempting to acheive a professional class, this “ethnic pep talk” is part and parcel to any academic institution. But I digress. Now to the Academic-Military Draft and to the “why” of its importance.
Half of all Chicanos never graduate from high school and for those who do graduate and go on to a college or university, less that half will graduate with a four year degree. Thus, we, as Chicanos, are falling further and further behind relative to “security”, economic, medical or otherwise.
Now, if you turn eighteen, you can “volunteer” for three years. If you’re a HS dropout, you can start with achieving the GED, and then go on to acquire a two-year degree in General Studies. And if you want to make a career of the military, you will get a “first priority” to West Point, Annapolis, or even the Air Force Academy. And if not, and once you have completed your three-year enlistment, you can go down to any financial institution and borrow the monies necessary for the third and fourth year academics. Of course, this financial burden can include the federal government ‘guaranteeing’ this loan. Long story short, the Volunteer spends 50% of the time on the military “mission” and the remaining 50% is spent on the academic “mission”.
As to the parents, they will not have to scrimp and save or do without to send their children to college. And equally important, the Volunteer will have cut the apron strings, have stood tall on his or her two feet, developed aconsiderable amount of self-esteem and self-discipline, and equally important, participated in the national “competition of sharp elbows”.
As to our ’socialized’ educational system, state legislatures will be reprogramming existing dollars away from first and second year academics, and to expanding third and fourth years institutions along with a further expansion of the various graduate schools. And if you’re a current instructor at a community college for example, you employment will continue with your efforts now focused on these “volunteers”. However, you will be self-employed and on contract to the Military Education Command or the MEC.
And in any event, what you’ve read is the foreshadowing of what Chicano military vets are ’selling’ to our community, and to date, the responses have been, for the most part, highly affirming. And how does this relate to the VA relative to UHC, military vets well understand the viability for this systemic as pre-eminent for “medical care delivered”. So, I have to chuckle when I here cost containment mentioned or discussed in today’s content and context Virtually all the ‘experts’ know and recognize that the Pentagon’s budget consists of 25% ‘waste’ and ‘pork’. Thus, moving $50 billion from the Pentagon into the VA, makes the job even more do-able and available to everyone regardless of any pre-existing conditions.
Consequently, the Academic-Military Draft will be that Chicano “platform” of support for an actualized VA for everyone. And who is going to challenge these Volunteers when they start their political palaver for “empowering the Individual”? Surely not the Democrats unless the Democrat wants to continue to demonstrate his fealty to the uber-wealthy and to Corporate America, first and foremost. And my fellow Democrats are far too smart to self-destruct?
Jaango
The Republican 10 Point Plan for Health Care
By Jon Perr Saturday Jul 25, 2009 8:00am
How can we “work toward it” when the legislation is going to be crafted to avoid that — and doesn’t kick in until 2013 anyhow?
And given the 2013 date, why NOW NOW NOW on HR3200 anyhow? Seems to me the more pressure that can be brought to bear, the better program we’re going to get.
The scenario I can see here is whatever emerges from reconciliation going to the floor for an up or down vote, and why should I trust that process? If single payer advocates hadn’t been consistently denied a seat at the table, I might have more trust, but the way things played out, my trust is not zero, but negative. And why wouldn’t be?
Show me the scenario where I don’t end up being forced to buy junk insurance because of the mandate, and then end up without health care anyhow! Those are the incentives of the current system, and those incentives are not changes with so-called “public option”.
My apology for the typos in my post @44.
Jaango
I ran across a super post by a member of the Acton Institute.
Hope it links.
“Ray Nothstine, Associate Editor at the Acton Institute, had his Acton Commentary, “Veterans First on Heath Care” republished by The Citizen, a newspaper in Fayetteville, Georgia. Nothstine explains in the article that the federal government needs to prove that it can provide adequate health care for 8 million veterans before we can trust them to provide health care reform for the entire United States. Nothstine points out flaws with medical system operated by the Veterans Administration. It is a timely piece especially among the constant health care reform debate that is occurring in the United States.”
BTW, WHY has the government,who is allegedly appreciative of the troop’s sacrafices, allowing KBR to continue with no bid contracts,electrifying showers,and providing troops with ice containing deceased;s body parts-and NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE to hold them accountable?
Think Progress » KBR gave troops ice tainted with ’traces of body …The lawsuit also accuses KBR of shipping ice in mortuary trucks that “still had … “The wild dogs could be seen roaming the base with body parts in their …
thinkprogress.org/2008/12/04/kbr-lawsuit-human-remains/ -
Another congresscritter who really doesn’t get it, seen at the Yarn Harlot (her right sidebar, Twitter):
I have a story I must tell which illustrates the difference between “for profit” health care and “for patient” health care. At age 58 I was treated for breast cancer at BMAC (Ft. Sam Houston Army Post medical facility). My late husband was retired military so I am eligible for military medical coverage. Hematology-Oncology clinic at BAMC is one of the world’s leading cancer treatment centers with state of the art equipment but because they are military, not as well known as say Mayo Clinic.
After their treatment, I went into remission and have been for eleven years. At age 65, we can no longer use the military facilities but we have excellent coverage with Medicare and Tri Care for Life. It’s like a gold card in the “for profit” medical world. Recently, I had a Urologists diagnose a return of my breast cancer. Now as a previous patient of BAMC’s Hematology-Oncology clinic, I had the guarantee of lifetime treatment no matter my age. I told my Urologists this but he wanted me to see his referral circle oncologists. At that point, I not only had to say no but I had to get involved in the referral process required to get me back to BAMC. This Urologists insisted that I see his man and not go out to BAMC. That in itself is malpractice because everyone knows how good BAMC is. The motivation for this Urologists is money. He’s willing to send me to a lesser clinic because he had a financial interest.
I can’t imagine a better illustration of the misuse of the “for profit” system than this. I have my appointment with BAMC this week but older or less agressive people are being mismanaged like this everyday.
Unfortunately, there isn’t. Ran into the same problem with my father, who was forced to lose all of his assets before government aid kicked in. Medicaid forces you to use up all assets (even your home if your the only one living there, if you have a spouse living there, then you can keep the home) before kicking in. And, it requires any “gift transfers” within the last THREE YEARS count as your assets. So, let’s say that farmer “sold” his farm to his nephew for “$1″. If he can wait three years before receiving treatments (unlikely with cancer), he’d be fine. If not, that “sale” will count as a gift, and the farm assets will be required to be used up before Medicaid pays a dime.
Also, I’m a veteran and get ALL OF MY CARE at the VA. And let me tell you, before that, I was a lifelong proponent of universal health care. Since then, it’s just more so. I go to ONE place, the VA clinic in Martinsburg, WV, to see my primary care doctor. I call and make appointments just like in the “real world.” He sees me, then if I need anything else (X-RAYS, BLOOD WORK), ANYTHING, I just go somewhere else in the same building, get the test, and all results, all history, all medications EVERYTHING is in the computer, the results of the X-Rays are usually in the computer by the time I get back to the doc. All prescriptions, he inputs in the computer, I walk over to the pharmacy, and pick them up.
Most amazing, stress free, efficient health care I’ve ever seen. And I used to manage a Pediatrician’s Office as part of 19 offices owned and operated by our hospital. Wow, talk about inefficiency. We had to have TWO FULL TIME GIRLS in our office to just deal with all the different insurance issues.
This current system is INSANE, and those that support are even more so.
Single payer, or VA like socialized medicine, is really the truly best solution.
Sorry for the length again. I’m a blowhard. :o
TT: A-yep. And if you’re wondering about motivations, click here.
The VA really is the Best Care Anywhere. They do a fabulous job.