healthcare as a right: heresy or gospel?

[nathaniel 0]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1017/p09s01-coop.html

The fellow makes a weak analogy but I like the gist of his argument. I''d put it outright, not only is free healthcare ambiguous but it's infinitely expensive, brutally utilitarian (and thus it ought to be morally wrong to any of you Christians out there), or both.

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The way to better, cheaper healthcare: Don't make it a human right
By Donald J. Boudreaux

FAIRFAX, VA. – Everyone complains about the rising cost of healthcare. And now is the season when politicians and pundits propose solutions. Unfortunately, too many of these proposals spring from the wrongheaded notion that healthcare is, as a recent New York Times letter-writer asserted, "a human right and a universal entitlement."

Sounds noble. But not everything that is highly desirable is a right. Most rights simply oblige us to respect one another's freedoms; they do not oblige us to pay for others to exercise these freedoms. Respecting rights such as freedom of speech and of worship does not impose huge demands upon taxpayers.

Healthcare, although highly desirable, differs fundamentally from these rights. Because providing healthcare takes scarce resources, offering it free at the point of delivery would raise its cost and reduce its availability.

[editorial continues...]

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[Lindsey 0]

"Healthcare." I think most people agree that there is some basic level of health care that should be provided to all people regardless of their ability to pay. Emergency healthcare in situations that are truly emergent, for instance, should be provided to all people, imho. I don't think that people necessarily have the *right* to even emergent healthcare, though, but rather I think we should provide it because it's humane. The bottom line's the same either way. I don't necessarily think that the state should foot the bill, but when hospitals and physicians pay, the cost gets passed on to everyone else in the end. I'm not a fiscally-minded person, though, and I don't know the answer to that.

Children should have a right to basic health care. Somewhere along that continuum of medical services it's just not feasible to provide care when there's no ability to pay. I think that they should be cared for as best as possible, though, until they're old enough to make their own way.

linz

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[nathaniel 0]

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I think most people agree that there is some basic level of health care that should be provided to all people regardless of their ability to pay.

Well, Dr Boudreaux and I disagree, so that makes two.

"most people agree that there is some level of basic health care" but nobody agrees on what exactly it is. Even establishing a basis for doing so is morally repugnant according to contemporary, popular belief systems.

Not to mention that it's hugely impractical and inefficient.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[Lindsey 0]

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I think most people agree that there is some basic level of health care that should be provided to all people regardless of their ability to pay.

Well, Dr Boudreaux and I disagree, so that makes two.

"most people agree that there is some level of basic health care" but nobody agrees on what exactly it is. Even establishing a basis for doing so is morally repugnant according to contemporary, popular belief systems.

Not to mention that it's hugely impractical and inefficient.

So you're in an automobile accident and critically injured. Nobody knows who you are or how you're gonna pay. Do you think someone should save your life? I do... not because it's your *right* to have your life saved, but because it's the right thing for us as people to do for each other.

linz

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[Lucky... 0]

Well, this is one of those cases where you're pregnant or you're not, although there could be degrees of healthcare provided at gov cost, so it's not totlly absolute.

I think it unconscionable for the richest country in the world to not provide reasonable healthcare. Maybe that's how we are the richest in the world, we deprive our own where other nations privide.

We can cut the sugar out of this topic and call it what it is: exclusive coverage. If you look at those who have provided coverage thru work where they're not paying street prices and huge copays, I bet far less than 1/2 the people in this country have descent health coverage while the richets keep getting richer. It's shameful.

[lawrocket 3]

I've said it many times, and it's something for which I have no solution.

There is a tripartite interest in healthcare, that is, there are three fundamental characteristics you can have with it:
1) Quality;
2) Affordablity; and
3) Availability

You can have two out of three, but not all three. That is, you can have high quality health care available to all. THis will not be affordable. You can have quality healthcare that is affordable, in which case it must be rationed. Of you can have afordable healthcare available to all, which will not be of good quality.

Making it a "right" will mean that all people will get the same level of care. Anything which is applicable to all will be shitty.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Jaden 0]

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Healthcare, although highly desirable, differs fundamentally from these rights. Because providing healthcare takes scarce resources, offering it free at the point of delivery would raise its cost and reduce its availability.

Absolutely…Nothing’s free; we’d still pay for this through taxes. With “free” healthcare and lack of personal responsibility; people will be less active, eat more and have more pregnancies, it’s called Medicaid. And it is usually abused and counterproductive to a healthy society. In an emergency, medical care is vital for those in need…regardless of finances. In the US, we have the best healthcare system in the world and the highest obesity rate on the planet.

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Making it a "right" will mean that all people will get the same level of care. Anything which is applicable to all will be shitty.

Socialized healthcare sucks. We should never even need to go that route.

[nathaniel 0]

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I think it unconscionable for the richest country in the world to not provide reasonable healthcare.

None such. We have the best healthcare available anywhere, but you can only have it if you can pay for it. This extends to "healthcare refugees" from other countries where proper care is either impossible or infeasible due to delays.

That's more fair to me than not available at all.

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We can cut the sugar out of this topic and call it what it is: exclusive coverage. If you look at those who have provided coverage thru work where they're not paying street prices and huge copays, I bet far less than 1/2 the people in this country have decent health coverage

Now you're onto something. The reason healthcare is provided through employment is that it's subsidized via federal tax breaks to employers. Basically we are dumping money into the salaries of only those people fortunate enough to receive employer-sponsored ( == federally subsidized) healthcare at the expense of the whole taxable population. Dumping money into the bottom lines of the companies that offer the plans. And screwing up the market for healthcare services all at once, driving up prices for individual consumers.

Shouldn't that make more people upset?

Is the answer more subsidies or less?

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[lawrocket 3]

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I think it unconscionable for the richest country in the world to not provide reasonable healthcare.

I'd invite you to go to LA County USC medical center's ER some day to see about "reasonable healthcare" provided to those who can't afford it.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[nathaniel 0]

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So you're in an automobile accident and critically injured. Nobody knows who you are or how you're gonna pay. Do you think someone should save your life?

This is a problem that can be solved with bracelets, tattoos (heh), nearly indestructible health plan cards, dog tags, registries (indexed with drivers license perhaps), or any number of technological or nontechnological administrative procedures.

I'd go out of my to save somebody who injured themselves near me out of personal interest. I wouldn't demand it of anybody for me any more than I would rob them for pocket change. Of course I'd promise remuneration if they did...

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[Richards 0]

I don't know for sure but my default position would be to provide a certain degree of health care if feasible while enforing user fees. The age old problem becomes the culture of entitlement that will surely accompany free health care.

The trade offs are;

>Compassion- I would hope that our society, as prosperous as it is can provide at leats basic care for people who need it.

>Externalities> I don't have any figures to back this but surely providing therapy that can get someone back to work must in many cases be cheaper than UI/Disability/welfare payments.

Regrettably in Canada we have seen these sort of health care issues spiral from basic health needs being covered, to comprehensive coverage of all niceties while lineups grew longer and funding depleted. During the era of Ontarios former premier Bob Rae (the fool who coined the phrase "Socialism is love" and who aims to be our next liberal PM), there was a scandal where OHIP was being billed for things like breast implants, tattoo removal...etc. I may be being harsh here but I was a bit put off by my tax dollars going to buff peoples egos and erase bad choices. Currently people who are unhappy with thier given gender can get a sex change operation covered by health care since not allowing it would be "Un-Canadian"

Our culture of health care entitlement has led to gratuitous consumption of health care dollars to the point of health care gluttony. For example; I had to go to a walk in clinic due to a workplace concussion and while in the waiting room I heard people cueing up at the receptionists desk for thier visits and declaring thier medical issues which apparently required a doctors attention. These problems included...a headache, a blister, sore pecs from having worked out...etc.

It seems that at one point in Canada we were able to maintain a health care program when everyone appreciated it and no-one took it for granted (before it got politicized) so I suspect it is feasible but it needs to be regulated, limmitted and prioritized so it remains feasible.

I suspect that if we limited what could be covered and charged usere fees while providing tax incentives to companies that would provide the rest for thier employees it could be acheived but I am only speculating.

Richards

My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

[billvon 3,078]

>This is a problem that can be solved with bracelets, tattoos (heh), nearly
>indestructible health plan cards, dog tags, registries . . .

No, it really can't. Because even if you use some cool technical gimmick, at some point you have to let a little girl die because you can't find her dog tag or DNA record. And I am glad that we, as a society, find that pretty repugnant.

Right now we have an unofficial two-tier medical system. People aren't turned away at ER's - instead, they get lousy to adequate care (depending on where they go) and get 'billed' with the knowledge that many people will never pay their bills. We all end up paying for those people through higher health care premiums, either through our insurance premiums or through higher medical costs (for people who pay directly.) To me, it doesn't matter whether we pay for it that way or through taxes to support an official two-tier system.

>I'd go out of my to save somebody who injured themselves near me out of personal interest.

Most people I know are the same way. Those people include EMT's and doctors, so the current trend of taking care of nearly everyone is likely to continue.

[nathaniel 0]

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No, it really can't. Because even if you use some cool technical gimmick, at some point you have to let a little girl die because you can't find her dog tag or DNA record.

What if you die in the ambulance while on the way to the hospital? The prospect does not lead us to take the journey by foot.

The implied alternative, silly, is no healthcare at all for certain types of injuries, or death due to worse delays caused by the usual villains: supply & demand. Refer to any major socialized healthcare system for real-world example.

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Right now we have an unofficial two-tier medical system.

Exactly, and healthcare as human right inherently--directly or indirectly--revokes the good tier.

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We all end up paying for those people through higher health care premiums, either through our insurance premiums or through higher medical costs (for people who pay directly.) To me, it doesn't matter whether we pay for it that way or through taxes

There is another way, of course, and it's every man for himself. The same way we treat automobiles, food, electricity, and televisions.

Why can't a free (-er) market work for healthcare?

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[billvon 3,078]

>What if you die in the ambulance while on the way to the hospital?

What if you do? People die all the time. What makes us better than your average wild animal is that we try to prevent that when we can.

>The implied alternative, silly, is no healthcare at all for certain types
> of injuries, or death due to worse delays caused by the usual villains:
>supply & demand.

And the implied solution is something we already have - triage.

As I said, I am suggesting a two-tier system. So if you can pay, you bypass triage and get the expensive doctor and the PET scanner pronto. If not, you get the best the publically funded system can give you.

>Exactly, and healthcare as human right inherently--directly
>or indirectly--revokes the good tier.

Nope. No more so than having public police revokes private security firms.

>There is another way, of course, and it's every man for himself. The
>same way we treat automobiles, food, electricity, and televisions.

Not getting a new TV is a bit different from letting a little girl die because you're not sure she can pay. I'm sure you understand that.

[jenfly00 0]

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I think it unconscionable for the richest country in the world to not provide reasonable healthcare.

I'd invite you to go to LA County USC medical center's ER some day to see about "reasonable healthcare" provided to those who can't afford it.

Perhaps we should look at where our present health care dollars are being spent ...and why.

I'd invite you to go to any Intensive Care Unit in South Florida and see how health care dollars are being spent. Currently we are spending mega bucks keeping 80, 90, 100 year old veggies alive beyond all reasonable and compassionate standards of quality of life.

For the ones that are somewhat sensate, they suffer the pain and indignities of procedures and surgeries for as long as modern medicine can keep them alive ...and modern medicine is very good at prolonging life! Why do we do this? In a word ...money. Medicare dollars, the life's blood of hospital income.

If they should improve, they are shipped back to the Nursing Home they came from where they can continue to lay in their own waste until end of shift cleanups...until the next heart attack or stroke when they are again shipped off to the ER and ICU to be farmed for more Medicare dollars. [google a search for "medicare icu dollars"]

Shifting the billions (trillions?) of dollars spent annually on these people to 'reasonable' free health care for citizens who have a chance to enjoy a quality of life given the benefit of reasonable health care wouldn't cost any additional dollars.

It's a win-win senario with the current much suffering cash crop of geriatrics being provided loving, compassionate end of life care to make their last days peaceful and pain free.

Of course, this won't happen. Why? Because the current system is an extremely profitable industry with waaay too many hospitals, physicians and corporations making fortunes. Their combined political clout is most formidable.

-----------------------
"O brave new world that has such people in it".

[nathaniel 0]

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Nope. No more so than having public police revokes private security firms.

Hah. No private policeman costs $1000 / hour. I defer to the real-world examples (again, refer to all major socialized healthcare systems, incl ours) before the analogies.

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Not getting a new TV is a bit different from letting a little girl die because you're not sure she can pay. I'm sure you understand that.

Not having food will kill you and your little girl too. Transport and electricity, or lack thereof also variously cause death. The point of including televisions in the list is to make you wonder whether healthcare could be considered a luxury good. Even basic healthcare.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[Guest]

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I've said it many times, and it's something for which I have no solution.

There is a tripartite interest in healthcare, that is, there are three fundamental characteristics you can have with it:
1) Quality;
2) Affordablity; and
3) Availability

You can have two out of three, but not all three. That is, you can have high quality health care available to all. THis will not be affordable. You can have quality healthcare that is affordable, in which case it must be rationed. Of you can have afordable healthcare available to all, which will not be of good quality.

Making it a "right" will mean that all people will get the same level of care. Anything which is applicable to all will be shitty.

"Public Health"?

I've seen the results of "Public Housing" and "Public Education"....

...no thanks.

mh

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[Lucky... 0]

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I've said it many times, and it's something for which I have no solution.

There is a tripartite interest in healthcare, that is, there are three fundamental characteristics you can have with it:
1) Quality;
2) Affordablity; and
3) Availability

You can have two out of three, but not all three. That is, you can have high quality health care available to all. THis will not be affordable. You can have quality healthcare that is affordable, in which case it must be rationed. Of you can have afordable healthcare available to all, which will not be of good quality.

Making it a "right" will mean that all people will get the same level of care. Anything which is applicable to all will be shitty.

True sign of a classist nation is one that promotes selective, exclusive care for the well-off while depriving those who don't,"deserve" it.

You can tell volumes about a nation by looking at its poor, and our poor don;t have healthcare. Hell, the Nazi administartion has failed to keep up with costs at the VA hospitals, cutting benefits for veterans. So if they do that for their soldiers, guess what if you're not a retired vet? I'm a non-wartime vet, non-lifer vet so I get zip.

[Lucky... 0]

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Healthcare, although highly desirable, differs fundamentally from these rights. Because providing healthcare takes scarce resources, offering it free at the point of delivery would raise its cost and reduce its availability.

Absolutely…Nothing’s free; we’d still pay for this through taxes. With “free” healthcare and lack of personal responsibility; people will be less active, eat more and have more pregnancies, it’s called Medicaid. And it is usually abused and counterproductive to a healthy society. In an emergency, medical care is vital for those in need…regardless of finances. In the US, we have the best healthcare system in the world and the highest obesity rate on the planet.

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Making it a "right" will mean that all people will get the same level of care. Anything which is applicable to all will be shitty.

Socialized healthcare sucks. We should never even need to go that route.

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Absolutely…Nothing’s free; we’d still pay for this through taxes.

Instead we cut taxes so the poor rich can have the bettercare while the poor, who have be disenfranchised via these very programs, can go without. The few have a lot, the many have zip - I fully understand.

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With “free” healthcare and lack of personal responsibility; people will be less active, eat more and have more pregnancies, it’s called Medicaid

Personal repsonisibility? I've seen enough of personal responsibility from your party; that rhetoric should be banned by now for the sake of mass hypocrisy.

So you're going to speak for all poor as being lazy? Nice, and all rich and Nazi pieces of shit. Ok, back to reality, the more you make, teh less you do, so be realistic. And your war, I wonder haw many rich are there? How many of those 8 are flying and how many are pounding the ground? So you love the poor when it's wartime, but fuck em when it comes time for benefits.

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And it is usually abused and counterproductive to a healthy society.

Really? Based upon what? It's counterproductive to the rich you mean.

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In the US, we have the best healthcare system in the world and the highest obesity rate on the planet.

And that's with great healthcare we have fatties, so the availablity of the care has zero to do with the weight of the people as you wrote in the previous passage.

Best healthcare, best country in the world.... hmm, I'm estmating your research and basis for that took ypou exactly zero seconds to conjure. More off the tongue rhetotic. Explain how it is the best and how it's selectively distributed.

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Socialized healthcare sucks. We should never even need to go that route.

And then he loses his job and his wealth and becomes an advocate for it. Be careful what you petition for, you may be in a position to need it one day.

[Lucky... 0]

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I think it unconscionable for the richest country in the world to not provide reasonable healthcare.

None such. We have the best healthcare available anywhere, but you can only have it if you can pay for it. This extends to "healthcare refugees" from other countries where proper care is either impossible or infeasible due to delays.

That's more fair to me than not available at all.

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We can cut the sugar out of this topic and call it what it is: exclusive coverage. If you look at those who have provided coverage thru work where they're not paying street prices and huge copays, I bet far less than 1/2 the people in this country have decent health coverage

Now you're onto something. The reason healthcare is provided through employment is that it's subsidized via federal tax breaks to employers. Basically we are dumping money into the salaries of only those people fortunate enough to receive employer-sponsored ( == federally subsidized) healthcare at the expense of the whole taxable population. Dumping money into the bottom lines of the companies that offer the plans. And screwing up the market for healthcare services all at once, driving up prices for individual consumers.

Shouldn't that make more people upset?

Is the answer more subsidies or less?

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None such.

Nobe such what? That doesn't make sense, I wasn;t refering to a quantity.

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We have the best healthcare available anywhere, but you can only have it if you can pay for it.

That caviat that you so gracefully toss out there is HUGE. You can live, if you can afford it.

Oh, shall we talk about the 2-prong decision the US Nazi court handed down, 9-0, about 2 years ago? If doctors order care, but HMO's decline, the HMO's win. 2nd - you can;t sue HMO's in state court, must be federal.

So to say we have the best selective medical care in the world might be true.

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This extends to "healthcare refugees" from other countries where proper care is either impossible or infeasible due to delays.

Beautiful, let's talk civil rights so you can bring in China as a comparison. NIiiiiiiiiiice. In that group of disqualified people are military vets like me, don;t forget to include those to sour your argument.

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That's more fair to me than not available at all.

Yes, let's go black/white here. How about a program like virtually all other countries have, one where the gov raises taxes, or in our case, stops sending 2 billion per week to Iraq, or to Haliburton, and we direct that to the medical coverage?

If you took a vote I bet the public would pefer that, but instead of the people voting in this so-called great Democracy, we have crooked representatives to cast their vote for their interests, which is why this country is great for the select few.

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The reason healthcare is provided through employment is that it's subsidized via federal tax breaks to employers.

1) Explain thsi to me, what breaks?

2) You've just defined fascism when corporations wrote laws and decide who gets coverage.

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Basically we are dumping money into the salaries of only those people fortunate enough to receive employer-sponsored ( == federally subsidized) healthcare at the expense of the whole taxable population.

Are you saying the tax writeoff is the tax break? I like, "fortunate enough." Really brings my point home. Guys like you who lose your favorable position are the loudest criers when it all falls in fro them.

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Shouldn't that make more people upset?

Is the answer more subsidies or less?

How about cut the corps out of the equation and have the gov decide who gets healthcare.....EVERY AMERICAN.

[Lucky... 0]

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I think it unconscionable for the richest country in the world to not provide reasonable healthcare.

I'd invite you to go to LA County USC medical center's ER some day to see about "reasonable healthcare" provided to those who can't afford it.

And your point is taht there are many poor people there getting free emerg care? Yea, and your pioint is??????? That still doesn't address:

I think it unconscionable for the richest country in the world to not provide reasonable healthcare.

[Lucky... 0]

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So you're in an automobile accident and critically injured. Nobody knows who you are or how you're gonna pay. Do you think someone should save your life?

This is a problem that can be solved with bracelets, tattoos (heh), nearly indestructible health plan cards, dog tags, registries (indexed with drivers license perhaps), or any number of technological or nontechnological administrative procedures.

I'd go out of my to save somebody who injured themselves near me out of personal interest. I wouldn't demand it of anybody for me any more than I would rob them for pocket change. Of course I'd promise remuneration if they did...

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This is a problem that can be solved with bracelets, tattoos (heh), nearly indestructible health plan cards, dog tags, registries (indexed with drivers license perhaps), or any number of technological or nontechnological administrative procedures.

WAIT, let's place a chip in them, or has your party already thought of that for people other than the privelidged?

[Lucky... 0]

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>This is a problem that can be solved with bracelets, tattoos (heh), nearly
>indestructible health plan cards, dog tags, registries . . .

No, it really can't. Because even if you use some cool technical gimmick, at some point you have to let a little girl die because you can't find her dog tag or DNA record. And I am glad that we, as a society, find that pretty repugnant.

Right now we have an unofficial two-tier medical system. People aren't turned away at ER's - instead, they get lousy to adequate care (depending on where they go) and get 'billed' with the knowledge that many people will never pay their bills. We all end up paying for those people through higher health care premiums, either through our insurance premiums or through higher medical costs (for people who pay directly.) To me, it doesn't matter whether we pay for it that way or through taxes to support an official two-tier system.

>I'd go out of my to save somebody who injured themselves near me out of personal interest.

Most people I know are the same way. Those people include EMT's and doctors, so the current trend of taking care of nearly everyone is likely to continue.

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And I am glad that we, as a society, find that pretty repugnant.

Excluding the Republicans in that feeling, of course.

[Lucky... 0]

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No, it really can't. Because even if you use some cool technical gimmick, at some point you have to let a little girl die because you can't find her dog tag or DNA record.

What if you die in the ambulance while on the way to the hospital? The prospect does not lead us to take the journey by foot.

The implied alternative, silly, is no healthcare at all for certain types of injuries, or death due to worse delays caused by the usual villains: supply & demand. Refer to any major socialized healthcare system for real-world example.

Quote

Right now we have an unofficial two-tier medical system.

Exactly, and healthcare as human right inherently--directly or indirectly--revokes the good tier.

Quote

We all end up paying for those people through higher health care premiums, either through our insurance premiums or through higher medical costs (for people who pay directly.) To me, it doesn't matter whether we pay for it that way or through taxes

There is another way, of course, and it's every man for himself. The same way we treat automobiles, food, electricity, and televisions.

Why can't a free (-er) market work for healthcare?

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Exactly, and healthcare as human right inherently--directly or indirectly--revokes the good tier.

Yes, humanity is wayyyyyyy overrated.

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There is another way, of course, and it's every man for himself. The same way we treat automobiles, food, electricity, and televisions.

I see, :

TV = human
Food = human
Cars = human
Electricity = human

This is what is supposed to seperate us from the other animals, not that we aren't animals, but some say we are different. After reading your posts on healthcare I tend believe we are more like them, or as we say they are anyway.

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Why can't a free (-er) market work for healthcare?

Because your party just controlled it for so the elderly couldn't go to Canada to buy it. Your party is the one that wants it to be selectively doled out.

[freethefly 6]

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Medicare dollars, the life's blood of hospital income

Come January 1st that is going to change. A large portion of people who depend on Medicare will be effectively cutoff from being able to depend on it for healthcare. Medicare eligibility income levels are to change. For a single person the income limit is $14,700.00. I recieve 1235.00 a month for SSDI. This puts me a shade above the limit. I got my letter awhile back stating that I am to be dropped from Medicare. At that time I was paying a premium of $98.00 a month. I got 2 Dr. visits a year. One to have bloods drawn and 6 months later to hear the results. 6 months later the cycle starts again. I canceled the visit I was to have in September as I am still paying the bills from the visit last March. If I want to hear the results from that visit it will cost me close to $1000.00. After learning that I am to be dropped, I volunteered to drop myself. Why should I continue giving money back to the government if I am not going to get any kind of service. I was dropped from Medicaid earlier this year as the income level was reduced to $669.00 a month. That is the new poverty level in the state of Missouri. Half of what it was. I would have to pay the $669.00 each month to qualify for Medicaid. I am angry at what has become of a good (not great but, good) system that did help alot of people. Up untill 2001, I had a great paying job and great insurance. I was on the required medications. I was monitored every 3 months. My job went to Mexico. My insurance went with it. I was quickly taken off of meds and everything went downhill from that point. The last thing that I wanted to do was go on SSDI. With worsening health issues, I had no choice. But, eventually I figured, "hey, I paid into it, I am entitled". Unfortunately, the current administration does not see it that way. I am angry that so many do not see it that way. I worked hard and made more than $50,000.00 a year. I am a veteran (the V.A. put me at the bottom of the list, not easy getting an appointment and there is only 2 VA hospitals in this state that will see AIDS patients, both are 200+ miles away). I say that I and everyone who has paid into the system has a right to good healthcare. I see part of the problem being overpaid doctors who DO NOT give a damn about their patients. I, also, see part of the problem being those people who scream about tax dollars being used to help people. If you want to scream about waste, scream about the pork barrel projects that waste more on bullshit projects that do nothing to benefit the people of this country. Not providing healthcare will ultimately cost more in the long run. As I get sicker, I will apply for any and everything that I can. Keep me healthy and I will be able to get off of this damn SSDI and back to work. Don't think that I am just sitting all day doing nothing. I have been trying to make a go at it with a home based embroidery business and t-shirts that I design. But, untill it starts to make money, I needed what Medicare provided. Everyone who paid into it needs it or will need it someday. Think about that.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young