CNN - Obama PAC ad a lie - cancer victim had insurance

One of the pluses of socialized health care is people are apt to see a doctor more often, since they're not having to pay extra for an appointment.

Yes- that's a plus alright, until the bills come due.

It's called: "pre-paid premiums"...Which is what you have with insurance policies, and money paid into plans like Medicare and Medi-Gap insurance.

But I LOVE the fact that the idea of people getting good health-care must keep you up at night.

Raees wrote: Did you go in for yearly physicals and tests? Did you have any symptoms that you talked to your doctor about before the "baseball" sized tumor was discovered?

One of the pluses of socialized health care is people are apt to see a doctor more often, since they're not having to pay extra for an appointment.

Another fairly tale fallacy. I've had insurance without a single gap in coverage for better than 20 years now. The co-pay to go see the doctor annually hasn't been more than $25 and I haven't gone in for an annual physical any year that I've been insured. The fact that the $25 bucks is now being paid by everyone else in higher insurance premiums is unlikely to change that reality. People who haven't gone to see the doctor for an annual physical aren't going to start going to the doctor once a year because they don't have to pay $25 anymore. Adults generally go see the doctor when they aren't feeling well. They may take their kids in once a year for an annual exam, but my experience is that very few who haven't had an experience similar to CKB's bother with carving time out of their life to go see the doctor once a year just to go see the doctor once a year.

My pa, God Rest his soul, went to see the doctor quite often during the course of his life, more often in his 50's after he had given up smoking as a result of the doctor telling him no purpose was served by coming to see him if he was going to continue smoking. Totally missed the blocked arteries near his heart and totally missed the mass growing in his lungs. Three years after his heart surgery, with more than one trip to the doctor for follow up care on his heart and his back surgeries, pa thinks he's got a cough he can't get rid of and goes to see the doc. After listening to his lungs and looking down his throat, doc sends him home with a prescription. Couple of weeks later, pa is back, cough is still there. Doctor does so more looking - can't really find anything, but decides to do some imaging to see how his bronchial tubes look - maybe they're inflamed for some reason. Viola - they find the mass of cancer. Too big to do anything about it at that point, but with chemo and some radiation, maybe they can shrink it down some to the point where it makes sense to do the surgery. Long story short - by the time they found the tumor it had already spread to his bones and liver - though they missed that reality as well despite taking lots of pictures looking for signs of it and had biopsied some nearby lymph nodes prior to the surgery. It was just a little over a year from the time the cancer was found until the time we buried my pa - and he'd been seeing doctors religiously for years. He'd had heart surgery and a couple of back surgeries and all of the tests and what not that have to be performed before they let the anesthesiologist give you the gas - all without anyone ever finding the cancer in his lungs.

Yeah, you might get lucky and the doc will find something before it gets really serious, but the reality of the situation is that there is little chance the doctor is going to find that problem in the 15 minutes they spend with you when you come in for your annual exam - which is the only one that the ACA is going to make the insurance companies pay 100% of the costs for. If it was the $25 co-pay that kept you out of the office before, you still aren't going to be seeing the doctor very often even if you take full advantage of having everyone else kick in that 25 bucks for you once a year.

PrintSmith wrote:

Raees wrote: Did you go in for yearly physicals and tests? Did you have any symptoms that you talked to your doctor about before the "baseball" sized tumor was discovered?

One of the pluses of socialized health care is people are apt to see a doctor more often, since they're not having to pay extra for an appointment.

Another fairly tale fallacy. I've had insurance without a single gap in coverage for better than 20 years now. The co-pay to go see the doctor annually hasn't been more than $25 and I haven't gone in for an annual physical any year that I've been insured. The fact that the $25 bucks is now being paid by everyone else in higher insurance premiums is unlikely to change that reality. People who haven't gone to see the doctor for an annual physical aren't going to start going to the doctor once a year because they don't have to pay $25 anymore. Adults generally go see the doctor when they aren't feeling well. They may take their kids in once a year for an annual exam, but my experience is that very few who haven't had an experience similar to CKB's bother with carving time out of their life to go see the doctor once a year just to go see the doctor once a year.

My pa, God Rest his soul, went to see the doctor quite often during the course of his life, more often in his 50's after he had given up smoking as a result of the doctor telling him no purpose was served by coming to see him if he was going to continue smoking. Totally missed the blocked arteries near his heart and totally missed the mass growing in his lungs. Three years after his heart surgery, with more than one trip to the doctor for follow up care on his heart and his back surgeries, pa thinks he's got a cough he can't get rid of and goes to see the doc. After listening to his lungs and looking down his throat, doc sends him home with a prescription. Couple of weeks later, pa is back, cough is still there. Doctor does so more looking - can't really find anything, but decides to do some imaging to see how his bronchial tubes look - maybe they're inflamed for some reason. Viola - they find the mass of cancer. Too big to do anything about it at that point, but with chemo and some radiation, maybe they can shrink it down some to the point where it makes sense to do the surgery. Long story short - by the time they found the tumor it had already spread to his bones and liver - though they missed that reality as well despite taking lots of pictures looking for signs of it and had biopsied some nearby lymph nodes prior to the surgery. It was just a little over a year from the time the cancer was found until the time we buried my pa - and he'd been seeing doctors religiously for years. He'd had heart surgery and a couple of back surgeries and all of the tests and what not that have to be performed before they let the anesthesiologist give you the gas - all without anyone ever finding the cancer in his lungs.

Yeah, you might get lucky and the doc will find something before it gets really serious, but the reality of the situation is that there is little chance the doctor is going to find that problem in the 15 minutes they spend with you when you come in for your annual exam - which is the only one that the ACA is going to make the insurance companies pay 100% of the costs for. If it was the $25 co-pay that kept you out of the office before, you still aren't going to be seeing the doctor very often even if you take full advantage of having everyone else kick in that 25 bucks for you once a year.

Took the words right out of my mouth :thumbsup: . Even after I went through two years of chemo and surgeries, I stilll have lots of friends over 50 who still won't get a colonoscopy even though it's a tiny copay. They are like I was and felt healthy, therefore they must be ok. Making the copay $0 won't change a thing. And what about the doctor and nurse shortage? What happens if every person in this country gets a yearly physical... see any problems with scheduling? I do. And you have to do special tests and scans to find stuff like cancer... none of my physicals ever gave the docs even a hint of my colon or kidney cancers that were both slow growing... not even blood tests.

OMG! We CAN'T have health care reform. That would mean EVERYONE would go in for yearly physicals!

Next thing you know, everybody is getting healthy as they catch stuff earlier and then undertakers would have to start laying off employees....

Where would it end???

Raees wrote: OMG! We CAN'T have health care reform. That would mean EVERYONE would go in for yearly physicals!

Next thing you know, everybody is getting healthy as they catch stuff earlier and then undertakers would have to start laying off employees....

Where would it end???

You never addressed the doctor shortage, or do you believe there will be no shortage? Also, do you think the ACA will attract more or less people to become doctors or will it make no difference? There's plenty of unintended consequences that brain stems like Pelosi could never imagine.

Let me put it this way with a little analogy: teacher pay sucks and the job is dangerous. But we don't run out of teachers, do we?

Raees wrote: Let me put it this way with a little analogy: teacher pay sucks and the job is dangerous. But we don't run out of teachers, do we?

What do you think?


"What is the national functional illiteracy rate?
The National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) done in the 1990's (and endorsed by the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) of 2003) found a total of 21-23 percent - or 40-44 million - of the 191 million American adults functioning at the lowest literacy level.

What is the functional illiteracy rate in Michigan?
About 18 percent.

What is the functional illiteracy rate in Detroit?
47% of metro Detroiters are reportedly functional illiterate.
"

http://www.detroitliteracy.org/faq.htm

Raees is from Detroit?

Raees wrote: Let me put it this way with a little analogy: teacher pay sucks and the job is dangerous. But we don't run out of teachers, do we?

We don't run out of teachers, we just add more to the classroom and we have very little accountability for grades WHICH SUCK. \

Moreover, across the country, fewer than half of primary care clinicians were accepting new Medicaid patients as of 2008, making it hard for the poor to find care even when they are eligible for Medicaid. The expansion of Medicaid accounts for more than one-third of the overall growth in coverage in President Obama’s health care law.

The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that in 2015 the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed. And that number will more than double by 2025, as the expansion of insurance coverage and the aging of baby boomers drive up demand for care.

Now keep living in your utopian dream world... hope you don't have to wait a month to get a MRI one day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/healt ... 5OQxenJLYA