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     Karl Loren Moderator Username: Kloren Post Number: 24 Registered: 05-2003 |
It seems a universal truth that people will take lagre gobs of something that is free -- particuarly when it is seen as valuable. Health insurance gives that appearance. Once you have paid the premium, or enrolled in some sponsored program, you feel that whatever you can get out of that system is fair and right -- moral, in other words. It is not! Health Insurance is always a matter of the ones who are healthy pay more in premiums than they use in service, and the sick ones use more in services than they pay in premiums. In other words, there are still a large number of people who believe that there is a free lunch. These people believe that welfare is "paid by the government" not by the neighbor. This is a moral blindness that stiffles our society in other justifying immorality, and also slows the economy because literally billions of dollars of "preventable" diseases are treated with your money. It is am immoral activity. "Shouldn't health insurance be OK," you ask? Not so when one guy watches carefully over his diet and exercise, and prevents disease by his good life style while another guy does the stupid things. He smokes, drinks too much alcohol, eats too many sweet foods, and does other obvious things to harm his health. He may not be doing these dumb things just because his health insurance will cover the cost of repair, but you can bet that the reverse is likely to be true. If a guy doesn't have health insurance he may worry a bit, at least, about eating that junk food. This concept is finally coming into the conscious of the average worker -- as companies and the government make it more and more plain that those few who abuse themselves are the largest consumers of health care services -- paid for from the premiums of the careful guy. Among workers, one hot topic of debate is the notion that those who require more health care should pay more. Marilyn Schlaf, a 54-year-old payroll administrator, takes the argument personally. Mrs. Schlaf is still recovering from a fall two years ago in which she broke a leg. Her late husband, covered partially by the Rockford Products plan, racked up big medical bills for years. A diabetic, he had a kidney transplant two decades ago and heart surgery a few years later. He later had both legs amputated below the knees. "My husband didn't have a choice to be a diabetic" or suffer any of his other afflictions, Mrs. Schlaf says, her eyes misting. "Nobody should have to go through what he went through." When people gripe about the relatively few workers who run up the largest medical bills, Mrs. Schlaf tells them to be grateful they haven't endured so much. "I don't mean to hurt Marilyn's feelings -- we get along pretty good," says Lloyd Long, a 59-year-old machinist. Even so, he has shared with Mrs. Schlaf his view that those who use the system the most should pay more for it. Mr. Long says he isn't suggesting that Mrs. Schlaf's family shouldn't have been given adequate treatment. "But just think about what the company pays out for people like Marilyn," he says. Source: Click Here for WSJ article. I view this new worker awareness as a vital sign in the restructuring of Medicare and health insurance generally. Of course the terrible truth is that the man who died, above, from diabetes, bypass, and amputation, was feeding his gut too many carbohydrates and did not know that his blood circulation could be easily improved, cheaply, with chelation therapy! It is immoral to eat junk and expect your neighbor to pay your medical bills. The blind immorality is not different even if you claim ignorance of diet and medical truths. Some morality is creeping, finally, into the health care awareness. As more and more workers take on this moral mantle in life, they are going to demand better and better medical remedies -- much better than the needless amputation and bypass surgery that are so common today, and can be so easily avoided. | ||
| Babu New member Username: Babu Post Number: 2 Registered: 05-2003 |
Dear Mr. Karl Loren, I am in complete agreement with your viewpoint. Health Insurance & Medicare - as it is operating now - is a further extension & expansion of the system of promoting parasites in the society. Most of the operating / governing systems all over the world are so designed that, few work hard and others live on it. Health Insurance & Medicare is promoting legalised corruption wherever government is involved, and manipulative fraud where private entities are involved --- almost all over the world. Resposible citizens remain healthy by their own effort and hardly use this system, but contribute to the premium pool quite liberally. The irresponsible (not all) spoil their health by bad living, and make full use of the luxury of the hospitals. Doctors and Hospitals charge exorbitantly for their services, often conducting many costly tests which are unwarranted, to make the sophisticated & costly equipment earn maximum profits. Just because Insurance company is paying, the patient does not mind signing the bill / invoice without even checking it for its accuracy. Insurance companies spend lot of money promoting new schemes to bring more and more people into its net. There is collaboration (collusion..?) between drug companies, hospitals, Insurance companies and politicians to form joint synergetic strategy -- to compell or lure the innocent citizens to contribute to their own prosperity...in the garb of providing security. Health insurance is a good concept if ethics are followed. But the present racket is the most sophisticated system of encashing the fear of future ill-health & accidental injury of the innocent and the ignorant, while promoting parasites in the process. MSR Ayyangar. | ||
| Karl Loren Moderator Username: Kloren Post Number: 29 Registered: 05-2003 |
Health Insurance is just one further step toward socialized medicine. In a bid to overcome the long waiting lists in Britain's National Health Service (NHS), some patients suffering from heart and lung ailments may be flown to India for surgery quickly and at almost half the cost, a media report said on Sunday. Source: Click here. Socialized medicine has failed in every large national system that has tried it. There are still people in the US clamoring for "universal health care" and who would deny they believe in "socialized medicine." They are misleading you, or are blind. When nations, indivdually, operate a socialized medical system, they yet exist within a world free market economy -- where socialist states compete with oneanother to come up with the best price, or the best product -- and go for the largest profit they can manage. Any thing else in health care is futile. It will be years before the US health care system implodes on itself -- the more free stuff we offer our citizens, the faster the system will go broke. Oh, you can tinker with the system and invent novel ways to ration care, even better than the ones we have. But eventually when you have something that is "free" it costs somebody who realizes that it is not moral. Morality has a way of finding its way into laws. The thing that prevents that just now is a batch of socialists, masquerading as "democrats" who want to trade votes for free drugs to seniors. The seniors will make the trade, to their doom. | ||
| Babu New member Username: Babu Post Number: 6 Registered: 05-2003 |
The main reason the health care system with insurance is failing is - it is not being considered an essential service to the society but a grand opportunity for business. Like in any business, profit is the motive here too and not the actual health of the insured. The simple but bitter truth is that health of the people is not encashable by individuals and groups such as Doctors, Hospitals and Drug companies, while the sickness is encashable by all. Hence it does not make economic sense to improve health and remove sickness. But, while maintaining sickness, it has to be made to appear that every effort is bieing made to combat sickness and redeem the patient, as otherwise he will escape this net and find health on his own at no expense. The entire medical system connected with health insurance is operating on the above core concepts & motivated philosophy. MSR Ayyangar |
