I never agreed with Peta until today.

Roamers said:
We're doing an Alaska Cruise out of Vancouver the end of May. You folks certainly hold your hotels near the cruise port in high regard.
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I have a good friend who makes good money but this is what he does when he travels. He'll take the Amtrak out of Norfolk, VA and head in one direction for a week to explore. He has a Brompton he takes with him for getting around with but this is what he does when he gets to the town he wants to explore. He sleeps on park benches like a homeless person! Like out in the wild, exposed to all the night has to offer in towns that have real bums sleeping on the streets! I told him the story of the singer from DRI sleeping on the street but he would climb a tree and be out of sight. I guess this is my friends rush for adventure. I'm surely not that brave! I get antsy sleeping in a cargo minivan, I could never imagine being exposed in the open on a park bench. Not suggesting sleeping on a bench on the street Roamers but it can be done for a little extra excitement, and money savings, when traveling!
 
February said:
I begrudge no one with good coverage, but I have family who work in this industry. A lot of foreigners come here from Canada and elsewhere to get ortho surgeries not covered by their insurance in their home countries. I say if you are 90 and want new knees and can afford them, sure, why not, but Anyone with good coverage should understand there are many paying much higher premiums to your insurer than you are and getting 1/10 the care. That isn't right and everyone knows it.

A lot of people don't know this, but the ACA-Obamacare, actually put caps on how much non profit and for profit HMO's can keep. Apparently some insurers were keeping up to 90% of the money for them selves and only spending 10% on Doctors and patients. These people deserve far worse than what Mr. Thompson got. The doctors aren't complaining because US Doctors are the highest paid in the world, but the working poor and what is left of the middle class have been getting taken advantage of for decades. There is a reason the shooter is becoming a folk hero in real time.

The sad thing is, Universal healthcare isn't coming any time soon. The US has always had a nursing shortage and we don't have nearly enough doctors per citizen. Last time I crunched the numbers, I think Canada has like 1 family doctor per 100 citizens, here in the states it's like 1 family doctor for thousands, not doable. I talk with my doctor about this all the time. They are trying to get around this problem with telephone "nurses" and video visits, but there still aren't enough health workers to make that system work here in the US.

So while many are just trying to stay alive after paying obscene amounts to their insurer, being denied coverage can not only be life changing, it can be a death sentence. My personal opinion, if you put in 8 hours of work, pay your bills and follow the law, you shouldn't lose everything you have, including your life, because you get sick. And yet it happens to too many every single day in this country. Something ugly was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm not expecting a revolution, but I'm not losing any sleep if HMO ceos are losing their's right now.
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I am a Canadian and luckily have a Family Doctor, many Canadians have not.\ and have to go to walk in Clinics.
The other Day I was at the Doctors Office for a checkup. I get there once or twice a year. One Sidewall of his Office one can see the Patient Files which must be in the 1000sands not hundredths as you mentioned. I understand the Doctor gets $ 32.** per Patient visit and allots 13 minutes for each visit.

Cheers
 
Urbancowboy said:
I am a Canadian and luckily have a Family Doctor, many Canadians have not.\ and have to go to walk in Clinics.
The other Day I was at the Doctors Office for a checkup. I get there once or twice a year. One Sidewall of his Office one can see the Patient Files which must be in the 1000sands not hundredths as you mentioned. I understand the Doctor gets $ 32.** per Patient visit and allots 13 minutes for each visit.

Cheers
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Rural or Urban? And as bad as it sounds, would you rather have what you have, or have nothing?
 
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My problem with assassination as a perceived penalty for someone's actions is it is too abrupt.
There is no public airing of grievance, no public charge to be judged on.
The assassin functions as judge, jury and executioner and that action should have no acceptance anywhere on planet Earth.
 
Dry Fork said:
The assassin functions as judge, jury and executioner and that action should have no acceptance anywhere on planet Earth.
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While you are right on principle, the problem arises when misfunctioning society and corruption give people the sense that some people are above the law.

Anger and desperation start to rise, until at one point it gets out of control and things explode.......

The healthcare system in the US is on an Unsustainable path that will lead to such explosion unless a complete overhaul is executed. Unfortunately, the lobbies / special interest / greed have been strong enough to prevent that from happening, so we can only watch the train run into the station at full speed.
 
And we have had 2 full generations of people raised on video games where it's kill or be killed. Got a problem? Shoot it!
 
scrambler said:
The healthcare system in the US is on an Unsustainable path that will lead to such explosion unless a complete overhaul is executed.
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What do you include in the "healthcare system"?

I would not include healthcare insurance. Just like I don't consider auto insurance part of the auto industry, or home insurance part of the real-estate industry.
 
Who would have guessed...
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Roamers said:
I would not include healthcare insurance. Just like I don't consider auto insurance part of the auto industry, or home insurance part of the real-estate industry.
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Those "insurance" concepts are not the same thing. Not at all. Mainly because the scenario where you wreck your Mercedes and the insurance refuses to pay because you were driving on an out-of-network highway and then you die does not happen.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
driving on an out-of-network highway
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I don't get denied for "out of network" providers either, just pay more for copay and have higher max out of pocket expense. Which is a known when choosing insurance.

If people paid attention to what was included/excluded in their policy, they wouldn't get a surprise. That also applies to auto and home insurance.

I don't know for sure (not important since I'm not a rock crawler) I bet if I rolled my Mercedes Sprinter doing stupid human tricks, insurance would deny coverage (out of network road).
 
Every business transaction you do with a large heartless corporation has an insane amount of fine print. Fine print that they frequently change. Nobody has the time or resources to spare to monitor all of that. For all I know my cell phone plan and notion.so software license require me to donate vital organs on demand. Or give them thirty years of servitude in exchange for low monthly fees. Also those T&C documents are written in obscure legalese and not plain English and use a lot of terminology that people outside of the field do not understand. All of that is deliberate.

Still in all, it is different.

If you don't own or operate a motor vehicle, you don't need auto insurance.

If you don't own a home, you don't need homeowner's insurance.

If you don't occupy a human body, you don't need medical insurance.

The first two are far easier than the third. And even with the first two you can get out of most of the insurance if you don't get a loan for the car or home.

Even more, it is possible to get through life without a catastrophic auto accident or losing your home. But all of us eventually die and that involves expensive hospital stays one way or the other. Most medical expenses are incurred in the last months of your life.
 
Roamers said:
What do you include in the "healthcare system"?

I would not include healthcare insurance. Just like I don't consider auto insurance part of the auto industry, or home insurance part of the real-estate industry.
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All of it, Insurers, hospital, clinics, Pharma.....
The prices they practice is insane and out of any rationale, and the opacity and arbitrary nature of them is borderline fraudulent. At this point it belongs in the racket category.
It is the result of a system based on greed over a few decades, and it keeps drifting in the wrong direction, with premium increasing at alarming rates year after year.
I have lived in several countries that have as good or better quality of care, and the prices in the US are between 5 and 10 times (sometimes more) what they are anywhere else.

And the quality of care in the US is not even better (actually often lower) than in these other places.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
Nobody has the time or resources to spare to monitor all of that.
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Sorry to read you don't have time to be prudent. Fortunately our UHC Medicare Advantage plan is not as you describe. I have skimmed medical, home, auto, liability insurance plans; none of the print is fine.
Mr. Coffee said:
But all of us eventually die and that involves expensive hospital stays one way or the other.
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My mom (mid 90s natural causes) , MIL (brain cancer), and FIL (pancreatic cancer) spent no time in hospital at end of life. Better not to generalize
 
scrambler said:
All of it, Insurers, hospital, clinics, Pharma.....
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I'd concentrate on those that charge, rather than the one that helps you pay.

Hopefully the new administration does something to bring reasonable healthcare insurance back.

When my kids were between college and real jobs, there was "catastrophic medical insurance" available. High deductible ($2000 as I recall) and costed next to nothing. ACA made that go away; that's all many younger folks need.
 
Roamers said:
I'd concentrate on those that charge, rather than the one that helps you pay.

Hopefully the new administration does something to bring reasonable healthcare insurance back.

When my kids were between college and real jobs, there was "catastrophic medical insurance" available. High deductible ($2000 as I recall) and costed next to nothing. ACA made that go away; that's all many younger folks need.
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Just add the Public Option and I'll be happy to let you have any insurance you want.
If it's so horrible.. You can continue to be the smartest guy in the room
 
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