What if there was a campaign to get everyone to drop health insurance

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

for six months?

Would that be long enough to bring the insurance/drug cabal to their knees?

Would the campaign be attacked and branded unamerican or communist?





Would it be the greatest thing that could be done to bring the idea of National Healthcare to the forefront of the public?

Gawd, that would be fun to see them squirm.

[ComerPerro]

1. Would be too big of a risk

Granted, I don't have insurance now, I am working to get coverage. And I need it, because I have a pre-existing medical condition that requires monthly perscriptions.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. I spend over 3K a year on insurance and it has paid roughly $300

for services...

I could get a better deal from the mafia.

[phylny]

45. If you have a big health crisis,

then you'll need that insurance, even though it looks like a bad deal now. That's what insurance is. It's not an investment, it's money spent as a buffer for when you're in a crisis. But I know you know this :)

We pay and EvvilCorporation pays for our health insurance, and I feel blessed not only to have it, but to say that this year, we didn't really need it.

[elehhhhna]

2. not gambling my house, etc. sorry.

keep brainstorming though...there has to be a way.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

4. I really feel that for the vast majority, six months without a doctor

would not risk that much. We've been brainwashed to believe that we cannot live without them.

[suziedemocrat]

28. Exactly - I think my father died partially due to poor medical care.

Sometimes you DO need a doctor. But I think we need them much less than we think. I mean - humans survived for millions of years without doctors. Sure, we live longer now, but a lot of that is due to improved hygiene, sewage, etc.

[elehhhhna]

39. My 8 y/o just got her wrist-cast off. Get real.

[Gormy Cuss]

46. I think it's a good idea

The responses here are proof that we all feel like we are held hostage. If you are healthy, under 40 and don't have kids, going insuranceless for six months is statistically not a bad risk. For everyone else, not so good especially if you have those little accident-prone immunization- getting germ factories in the family.

A less risky approach would be to seek out catastropic coverage only. You must have the ability to pay a few more thousand out of pocket if you get sick or hurt, but it's not as much of a risk as dropping coverage all together and you'll save a bundle in premiums.

[Warpy]

5. I have two friends undergoing chemotherapy right now

What is their option? Do they go into debt and be refused bankruptcy protection and lose everything they have, or should they stop chemo and die?

Your suggestion is nice, but only the healthy would be able to comply. Too many people out there are sick and need that insurance to stay alive.

I would dearly love to go on a six month drug holiday myself, not having insurance to pay for it, but I'm afriad I'd be bedridden two weeks into it and improve only enough to be in a motorized wheelchair when I restarted the medication in six months.

What is likelier to happen is small companies and then large ones and finally megacorporations will simply stop contributing anything to their employees' health insurance below the top executive level, leaving more and more people without insurance.

And that is when we'll see wholesale grassroots rebellion.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

8. Of course, people in that sort of situation would not. BUT, the

relatively healthy population could easily coast for six months w/out insurance. That is the vast majority. I once went for 10 years without it. I lived.

[Warpy]

13. You can't count on being 100% healthy and accident free

even when you're young. It's an unacceptable risk. Most people will have to face it when their companies stop paying for coverage and they can no longer afford it by themselves. Expecting them to face it before they are forced to is unreasonable.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

15. Absolutely true. BUT, IMHO, too many have been brainwashed

to feel they can't live without their xanax or alegra or whatever. So many go to the Dr. for any and every little ache or pain.

The majority of American visits to health care at this point are probably instigated by pharm ads.

Shit happens, true. But we have to stop the insanity somehow.

[GiovanniC]

21. "It's an Unacceptable Risk"

Which is exactly why NOBODY -- much less 40-50 million Americans -- should be without health insurance.

That they are is a crime of the highest order.

[cestpaspossible]

6. Self-insure. My advice to college grad new hires:

take whatever money you WOULD pay in premiums if you signed up for your employers health insurance plan, and pay it into a special account that you set up and use only for paying medical bills.

[BlueEyedSon]

7. Won't exactly save your house (or your life) if you have a catastrophic

medical issue.

[oneighty]

9. In the land of make believes

and what ifs.

MSNing today with a DUer. We talk what if there were no health insurance, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no veterans health care and no health insurance what ever?

Would Doctors work for food? Would nurses work for food? Would for profit hospitals close their doors? Would the wealthy pay an arm and leg for health care because they got the money? Would drug companies have two for one sales?

Would this not be a free market thing like the Republican free marketers try to sell to us?

Would the people band together and form health care corporations to provide for each according to his needs?

Will I go to terrorist jail for suggesting such a conservative/socialist idea? (Conservative Socialist got a nice ring to it) sort of like Compassionate Conservative?

And then I shook myself out of such foolish thoughts.

180

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

11. God love the what ifs. 180! This would be like a 21st century Boston tea

party.

I think it would have the same effect. People standing up to the corporations that rule without representation.

:toast:

[Cleita]

14. No, you just described every third world country in the world.

The rich would get health care and the poor would die in the streets without any care other than the hit or miss system of charity. What do you think Mother Theresa did in India all those years? She picked the dying off the streets and gave them hospice care.

Woudn't it have been much better if there had been a health care system in place to take care of these people before they got too sick to work? When you get too sick to work and you can't afford health care, then you stop getting an income which throws you out into the street to die uncared for unless someone shows you some pity.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

17. We're talking six months, Cleita!

There will be NO health care for the working poor until the cabal is kicked firmly in the ass.

If Insurance and pharm revenues were reduced by 50% for six months, people would take notice and just maybe, things would change.

[Cleita]

18. You're not going to get people to give up their health plan

especially if they have a family or a chronic condition needing attention.

[oneighty]

19. I did suggest such a system

Conservative Socialism. Health care for every one each according to his/her needs.

Yes indeed. I am reminded of the Doctor I worked for at the University in the last century. He was a socialist minded Medical Doctor. I asked him one day "Why don't you set up a private practice? Make some money." He Suggested he did not want to be out there "Guessing with the rest of them."

He would have worked for food.

180

[Cleita]

10. If the government were to offer health insurance

to employers and individuals at fixed rate that is lower than what the private insurers offer and that covers everyone regardless of health conditions at the same rate, it would undercut the private insurers enough to drive them out of the business. Then the government could expand coverage to all under a single payer system.

To do this you need a liberal government though.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

12. It will never happen as long as big pharm & Insurance pay the politician's

bills. They won't bite the hand that feeds them.

It's no longer the people keeping people in office, it's the corporations and PACs.

[Cleita]

16. That's for sure.

I believe we might have to fight them with their own methods. I thought what if groups of people formed cooperatives for just the things that have been placed out of reach for most people because of the corporations like health care? These would be organizations that are corporations and they would compete with the big corporations. It wouldn't be easy, but it could be done. It would require some sharp business heads to undercut the big guys at their own game.

[oneighty]

22. I thought I just suggested that?

No?

180

[Cleita]

25. No, you suggested Germany after WWII.

We have a lot of things run by the government here still. On the Physicians for a National Health Plan website (http://www.pnhp.org ), there is in their archives a study done by the Harvard Medical School that shows that 60% of health care plans are government run. You have Medicare, Medicaid, CHIPS, CHAMPUS and others I can't recall right now. The insurance industry only does 40%. Yet, 44 million or 16% of Americans are uninsured. Many others are underinsured.

Yet because of overbloated private insurance practices our per capita expenditure is $5,000 per person, compared to $2,500 for Canadians. Yet all Canadians are covered with health care that isn't any lower in quality than what we get. Because we don't have a decent health care system 18,000 Americans die unnecessarily each year from treatable diseases.

So, you see we have a lot of government assistance yet not enough. We need 100% government participation and private insurance can find a niche, like plastic surgery to cover.

But the point of the original poster is how to get the private insurance companies out of our health care system. It would be sort of like getting AOL off your computer once you let them in, but I was suggesting a couple of possibilities.

[oneighty]

29. No I am suggesting

government run socialized medicine, universal health care, by any other name it is socialized medicine.

I am in the VA socialized medicine program. It is not great but I do wish all Americans had similar access to preventative health care and more when necessary.

180

[Cleita]

33. B-bbbut you said....

Nevermind, I know what you mean now and the VA was one of the government run health programs I forgot. The single payer health system advocated by the PNHP is one of the best and most rational one I have seen. Take a look at it when you get a moment. I posted the URL on the post above. It covers everything for everyone for less than we spend on health care today with our inefficient hodge podge system. It would bring all the current government systems like the VA and Medicare under one agency and expand coverage to all.

Both patients and health care providers would benefit under the system. If we could ever get this out in front of everyone, I think it would be a winner. Also, you would have to be prepared for the nastiest battle ever from the for-profit health care industry. I have already seen what they can do when they think it might happen. Look what they did to make Hillary's proposal look like it was anti-American, even treasonous.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

34. IT would cut the insurance cabal out of the loop.

They won't let that happen without a big cut for themselves.

It's to the point that they have to be financially destroyed before anything will happen. There's too many working poor (muchless, the truly poor) who cannot afford ANY healthcare. I know, I was one of them for many years.

[Cleita]

41. Me too.

I finally got old enough for Medicare, just in the nick of time too. It seems like I started falling apart the month it went into effect.

[oneighty]

35. Yes

Keep in mind my first post was world of make believes and what ifs.

As a vet I do not want the VA and Medicare to be joined.

180

[Cleita]

40. Both would be brought into an overall system.

The idea is to have one agency collect the money needed from the various sources, like the general fund, maybe payroll tax and other sources. Each healthcare provider then would bill one agency. In the case of hospitals, they want to fully fund every hospital each year for it's operation, meaning there would be a full staff and each bed paid for year around.

The VA would fall under this system. The idea is that beds would be filled with needy patients regardless of their ability to pay and there would be a fully paid staff to care for them. The contract would be renegotiated each year for inflation and other fluxuations.

[oneighty]

44. I think the VA budget

would be kept VA. I do not pay money into the VA system. Some veterans are means tested true. I am category one. Course I will not be around to see any of this change.

180

[cestpaspossible]

20. It's the insurance industry that's keeping us from national health care

system. Right now we have a system in place that is not about providing health care to people, but about providing insurance to people.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

30. Carry it one point further: They are about providing a return to major

stock holders (while filling thier own pockets).

[crispini]

23. The HELL I'll give up my insurance.

I'm young and healthy and I probably COULD go without insurance for six months. I don't go to the doctor more than once a year or so. But just ONE accident without insurance is all it would take to financially ruin me. Uh, no, sorry.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

24. Damn shame. They have won & will continue to rape your pocketbooks.

Too many, too fat, too scared, too greedy, too brainwashed, too comfy, too lazy, ad infinitum.

[EVDebs]

26. Too late. Businessweek story "The Benefits Trap" shows companies

are deliberately unloading pension and healthcare benefits in order to "compete" with their own foreign affiliates"

"Perhaps most important, in the global economy, long-established U.S. companies are competing against younger rivals here and abroad that pay little or nothing toward their workers' retirement, giving the older companies a huge incentive to dump their plans. "

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_29/b3892001_mz001.htm

So, globalization idiots, like Thomas Friedman, have been spreading their pixie dust to the multinational business leaders who follow the wage arbitrage advise and treat their US workers like...third world workers. The third world workers, who don't consume like the US workers, inevitably lead to a decrease in world consumption demand which leads to a slower US and then world economy.

Not a pretty picture overall.

[suziedemocrat]

27. I worked on an IT project for BCBS with a $4 million/month budget.

The project was late -- by years! I'm not sure they ever got it to work. It was run by Deloitte Consulting. It was a total mess!!! 95% of the programmers were Indian making shit wages. Yet the budget (mostly for Deloitte's "expertise") was $4 million a month. If a Health Insurance company can afford to throw that much money down the drain every month - I think there is a big problem!!

[Freddie Stubbs]

31. Perhaps we should boycott eating also

That will teach those greedy corporations which sell food at sky high prices.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

32. Are you insinuating that one cannot live without insurance?????

[bpilgrim]

36. sounds like a bush plan...

but then they'd make it PERMANENT :evilgrin:

peace

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

37. LOL, thanks, BP, I needed a laugh after the reaction to this.

[bpilgrim]

38. ;-)

couldn't resist but figured a little humor couldn't hurt :hi:

peace

[ScreamingMeemie]

42. Except I'd be dead of tachycardia by then. I wouldn't be able to afford

the prescription for my heart meds, my immune system boosters, and my blood pressure medication. :hi:

[NMMNG]

43. Couldn't do it

There's no way I could afford to pay for my medications out of pocket for six months. It would be in the ballpark of $5000. Then there are any medical appointments or labs I need-and any emergencies that come up...

Nice concept but too risky.

[yewberry]

47. "Drop" health insurance?

I'd have to *get* health insurance first, and I can't afford it.


PS--I hope this isn't the wrong thing to say, but I've been wondering. Did your pretty dog come home? I hope so.