Login to Change.org
Create an Account
Allie Johnson
Kansas City, MO
Recent Activity
-
Allie signed the petition | -
Allie signed the petition | -
Allie signed the petition | -
Allie commented on the article |Kelly,
Thanks for sharing your perspective on this. I agree -- we should work to change the shelters so they allow pets and that homeless people and their pets can have a warm place to stay together.
I agree that homeless people's pets aren't homeless. I think a pet that is with a homeless caretaker who loves them and is committed to sticking with them through thick and thin is a lot better off than many of the pets I see who are tossed in someone's back yard & forgotten, alone in all kinds of weather, yet many consider that a "home." What matters to the animal is to love and be loved.
Kelly, I am glad for you and your animals that you have each other. I am very sorry to hear of all that you are going through. That is so wrong.
Allie
-
Allie commented on the article |Ethan,
Economic theory is not my strong suit, so I'm not going to go into a long, speculative reply to your speculation about what might happen if we had zero government regulation of the health insurance industry.
However, I just don't see that we need some fancy array of "products" that do the job of paying for health care. In fact, I think, given that we all have bodies that could become unexpectedly sick or injured at any given time, we all have the exact same needs: to get any expensive health care we suddenly need paid for in full at the time we need it. (Without being jacked around, denied, cut off or forced into bankruptcy and homelessness while we're sick.)
It's kind of like the service of putting out fires. Do we need a thousand different fire companies all competing to get us to buy their "fire insurance," with one differentiating itself by having purple trucks that squirt green Jello at a fire while another might have the fire fighters serve you a latte while they put out your fire? No - we just need to know that, should we ever be unlucky enough to need the service, a fire truck will show up in a reasonable amount of time and put the fire out. That's it. it's something everyone needs (even those of us too smart to ever leave the stove on could have faulty wiring or a neighbor who leaves the stove on) so we've decided to pool our money to provide this service to those who need it for the common good and have the government take care of this service, and overall it works adequately.
On the paying side of health care, we should do the same. None of us could possibly predict exactly what might go wrong with us (car accident? cancer?) so we pool our money for the common good, knowing that all we need is someone to take the money we've all paid in and write a check when someone is unlucky enough to be struck with a serious illness or injury. That's it. Simple. -
Allie commented on the article |
Ethan,I agree with you about diet (I'm a huge fan of Dr. John McDougall, and it seems criminal to me how little attention and credit diet change gets for restoring the health of people who supposedly needed bypass surgery etc.) I also eat that simple diet of grains, beans and vegetables you talk about, and it really staggers the mind how much suffering could be prevented if people stopped living on Big Macs and Twinkies.
However, it's a fact of life that the majority of Americans are not going to eat that way, at least not right now. So, we need to work with what we have. Just saying that someone else should do this or should do that isn't going to be very productive.
Not only are you and I already paying for all those Big Mac induced bypasses via our health insurance premiums (well, I do at least because I know anyone could be in an accident or get food poisoning from tainted spinach or come down with a genetic illness - none of us is immune to illness no matter how healthfully we eat) and through our taxes, which pay for Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, the VA, Tricare for military and gold-plated Cadillac lifetime health care for every one-term member of Congress and President, including George Bush. And we're also paying for the mansions of those health insurance CEOs who make 20-some-million-a-year salaries AND the huge overhead and marketing costs of said health insurance companies and their obscene profits. Unless you don't have health insurance or pay taxes, you are paying for all of this.
So, the question becomes, not should my neighbor be eating all those Big Macs, but given the reality of the situation in the U.S., what should we do?
If I am going to pay for everyone's bypass and cholesterol lowering meds then I'd at least like to get the most bang for my buck. (And I also recognize that just because I eat well does not mean I'm somehow immune to getting sick or injured, like a lot of healthy eating exercisers on these threads seem to.) The best way to do that is single payer, I believe, though a Japanese system could work as well but would probably be more costly because of more administrative layers.
Also, a single payer system would allow more emphasis to be put on preventative care and wellness, and the effectiveness of these initiatives measured over time. I'm always puzzled by people who state that the current mess would somehow be solved by LESS government involvement. Okay, so health insurance companies just screw people every chance they get now because there's a little too much government oversight, so of course it logically follows that if there were less oversight, they'd suddenly turn into Boy Scouts??? That's like saying that abusive spouses would suddenly become peaceful and loving if we repealed domestic violence laws - it defies logic. We can see what competition gets us now - it gets us cost cutting, skimping on quality, denials of care to save money, tricky contract language no "consumer" can understand etc.
Allie -
Allie commented on the article |
Brilliant post. Thanks for your in-depth explanation of how the Japanese system works.
My favorite parts are fixing premiums at a set percent of your income (and the government picking up the employers' part for the self-employed -- I like that because I'm self-employed and we already pay double taxes elsewhere) as well as making it illegal to screen out or charge anyone more for pre-existing conditions AND illegal to deny care. (Yes!) I'd still rather see single payer because I just think insurance companies can't be trusted and I just don't see what value they bring in exchange to all the layers of complication they add, but if we were offered this system tomorrow, I'd be thrilled.
One thing that wasn't clear to me -- you mentioned that the Japanese pay coinsurance as well for different procedures (10 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent etc.) Is there some kind of cap on this so something really major like an organ transplant wouldn't bankrupt the patient? (I know prices are lower, but I'd still imagine that some serious illnesses could be costly enough that coinsurance fees could wipe someone out financially?)Allie
Impact
7 Actions
0 Recruits
Organizations
-
ACCION International1 Action 0 Recruits
