Healthcare for All

Sounds good to me. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a boo-boo and just go to the nearest doc-in-a-box and get fixed up. Then walk out, no questions asked.

Who is going to pay for all this?

Just think if your social security card or your driver’s license declared you lived here and was eligible to the fineness healthcare on the planet. Whether you needed a vaccine shot or an MRI brain scan, you (the patient) could just get whatever the doctor ordered without a co-pay or deduction.

Too good to be true?

If you want healthcare for all, it will cost you. What it will mean that everyone from the pregnant mother to dying cancer patient will get the best care possible in the area without waiting for an approval from an insurance company of what is covered.

What about those insurance folks?

If the government is going to take over paying everyone from the EMS to the specialist surgeon to the Emergency room nurses to the folks mopping up the blood, the insurance folks won’t be needed to go through Plan A or Plan B or sub-coverage under special cases unless declared on certain days with pre-existing conditions. Maybe they can get a job at Amazon?

Sounds like a mighty big task?

So is the military. If you are under attack from missiles or aliens, you expect the government to send in the folks to protect you and get things back to normal. You don’t buy insurance for protection against the bad guys. Well you do with your taxes.

TAXES!!

If you are really scared, you can purchase protection of your home and family and stuff with cameras and surveillance or locks or even buy a gun, yet the community offers police protection if you pay your taxes. If you don’t pay your taxes when you call 911 will anyone answer?

But what about healthcare for all?

Seems that healthcare for all would mean the U. S. of the A. would take command of paying for all the doctors and hospitals bills. Whether you have a shark bite or in a car crash or a facelift or an abortion, the government will pay for it. This would be like VA. taking care of our veterans. How is that going?

What about prescriptions?

Imagine if you will, your doctor prescribes some pills that will keep you alive. You bet, but what does it cost. Don’t worry about it, the government is going to pay for it, just like all the bombs and bullets.

Could this start a corruption within the government?

Silly, there is already corruption with ‘drug’ companies feeding the lobby industry. Remember the FDA is also a government agency and they approve these things.

What about mental health?

What is mental health? Who defines crazy? Is it the person who buys a weapon of war with some anger issues and moze down shoppers at WalMart or the kid wandering through the supermarket without looking up from his phone? Clean up on Aisle #9. Who pays for that?

So this healthcare for all will cover everyone everywhere?

Sure. From Kansas to Florida, you get sick or broken; the U.S. of the A. will take care of it. Shoot, if you travel to France or Yemen, you are covered.

How will the government handle all of this?

Oh there will probably be another department or agency or commission to hire accountants and computer programmers and a bunch of bureaucrats to beg congress for more and more money allocations. Maybe those Blue Cross and Anthem folks can do the task?

What is this healthcare for all insurance?

Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent or uncertain loss.

An entity, which provides insurance, is known as an insurer, insurance company, insurance carrier or underwriter. A person or entity who buys insurance is known as an insured or as a policyholder. The insurance transaction involves the insured assuming a guaranteed and known relatively small loss in the form of payment to the insurer in exchange for the insurer’s promise to compensate the insured in the event of a covered loss. The loss may or may not be financial, but it must be reducible to financial terms, and usually involves something in which the insured has an insurable interest established by ownership, possession, or pre-existing relationship.

The insured receives a contract, called the insurance policy, which details the conditions and circumstances under which the insurer will compensate the insured. The amount of money charged by the insurer to the Policyholder for the coverage set forth in the insurance policy is called the premium. If the insured experiences a loss which is potentially covered by the insurance policy, the insured submits a claim to the insurer for processing by a claims adjuster. The insurer may hedge its own risk by taking out reinsurance, whereby another insurance company agrees to carry some of the risk, especially if the primary insurer deems the risk too large for it to carry.

Sounds too good to be true?

No problem. Look at how the government handles your taxes. Just a simple deduction from your paycheck to cover that newest ambulance or prescription is all that is needed. Out of work and on the mend? Don’t worry the rest of us will cover the cost. If not, the government can just print up some more money or like the usual budget arrangement, borrow.

What about the states?

It will free up their budgets along with private businesses to set aside funds for medical plans approved by unions. Whether you live in West Virginia with black lung or Florida with skin cancer, you are covered. Just send the bill to Uncle Sam.

What if I don’t get sick?

Sorry sucker, but you are paying premiums (taxes) that you will never recover. It is all a hedge bet that you lose.

Long-term healthcare?

We are all getting up in years and can’t expect the youngins’ to be paying for our wheelchairs and walkers. It has to end somewhere.

Hospice care is a type of care and philosophy of care that focuses on the palliation of a chronically ill, terminally ill or seriously ill patient's pain and symptoms, and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs. In Western society, the concept of hospice has been evolving in Europe since the 11th century. Then, and for centuries thereafter in Roman Catholic tradition, hospices were places of hospitality for the sick, wounded, or dying, as well as those for travelers and pilgrims. The modern concept of hospice includes palliative care for the incurably ill given in such institutions as hospitals or nursing homes, but also care provided to those who would rather spend their last months and days of life in their own homes.

In the United States the term is largely defined by the practices of the Medicare system and other health insurance providers, which make hospice care available, either in an inpatient facility or at the patient's home, to patients with a terminal prognosis who are medically certified at hospice onset to have less than six months to live. According to the NHPCO [National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization] 2012 report on facts and figures of Hospice care, 66.4% received care in their place of residence and 26.1% in a Hospice inpatient facility. In the late 1970s the U.S. government began to view hospice care as a humane care option for the terminally ill. In 1982 Congress initiated the creation of the Medicare Hospice Benefit, which became permanent in 1986. In 1993, President Clinton installed hospice as a guaranteed benefit and an accepted component of health care provisions. Outside the United States, the term hospice tends to be primarily associated with the particular buildings or institutions that specialize in such care (although so-called “hospice at home” services may also be available. Outside the United States such institutions may similarly provide care mostly in an end-of-life setting, but they may also be available for patients with other specific palliative care needs. Hospice care also involves assistance for patients’ families to help them cope with what is happening and provide care and support to keep the patient at home. Although the movement has met with some resistance, hospice has rapidly expanded through the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere.

So after the last breathe, then what?

Well the funeral industry is a whole different thing. They are not focus to keeping you alive but for disposing your body. Families and friends enjoy this ceremony of depositing the body into the ground with much ceremony and sadness so let that be a personal preference.

What about those who don’t get sick? Is there a discount?

Like all insurance, if your car doesn’t crash or your house burn down you pay your premiums and don’t get any returns. This is not a CD with interest. A deadly insect or fall off a mountain climb could still without your permission sting you. Who’s to say? It is a crapshoot.