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Unconscionable

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Susan Richards is a retired editor living in Thornton, Colo., near the family and mountains she loves. Her long-standing Pied Type blog contains some 3,800 posts dating back to 2002.

Categories Health, Politics25 Comments

25 thoughts on “Unconscionable”

    1. Oh, gawd. Now we’ll have to listen to Trump carry on and on and on and on about he put this together, he got the House to work together, he did this and that and everything else but listen to the people.

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      1. I’m sure we’ll be hearing about this “great accomplishment” for months, even if the Senate shoots it down (and I’ve got my fingers tightly crossed, hoping they have more sense — but I’m not counting on it).

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    1. Yep.
      However, I must applaud Colo.’s GOP Rep. Mike Coffman who sided with Dems and voted against the bill because he was concerned that some people with pre-existing conditions would lose coverage.

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      1. Everybody Australian and Permanent Resident, of which I am one,(PR that is) is entitled to the same benefit. and it has seen me through a stroke and cancer operations at no cost.
        And that’s the way it should be in any civilized society. 😀

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        1. Yes for citizens. Only makes sense.
          We investigated immigrating there some 10-15 years ago (sailing is fabulous there) – financial requirements make sure new arrivals don’t become a drain on system before they can become part of it by paying into it. Wise.
          Everyone says it’s a beautiful place. Have to admit the Aussies we know are great human beings.

  5. Nothing is settled yet. The Senate is going to write their own version, then they will battle again and as usually, it’ll be time for them to have another vacation period…..
    The problem is in the details…and the fine print…which none of them read or want to talk about.
    (Like why did we spend hours and hours on the phone this weekend trying to find out why one prescription doubled in price in the last 2 weeks? Hmmm? No one wants to say….all sorts of finger pointing …DOUBLED to the penny. Outrageously expensive. And this is still under Obama care act.
    Unless the new one pushes back on the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and the hospital corporations – NOTHING will change. It’s not the doctors (who now 90% are on salary from hospital corporations). It’s those big 3 still running things.
    Devil in the details.
    Oh, did you hear that lovely man who is chairman of board of Berkshire Hath. at the annual company meeting actually say “I don’t know why they bother giving chemo to people who are already dead. Waste of money” Talking about cancer treatments: “At some point you just have to say, it’s not going to help, so why bother…” “We already have treatment and care for anyone wants it,” he said on a business channel this afternoon.
    Right. Once again, a millionaire telling the rest of us….
    Pr-existing conditions have to be covered – at all ages – not just for the young and the adults who some committee thinks are worth it….and not given to those “too old for it to be cost effective”
    You bet I’m worried – about Obama care (and their committees of young healthy social workers, hospital management, insurance partners, social security bureaucrats who want to discuss just how much treatment you really want to have – cost effectiveness vs what kind of life you’ll really have at your age I mean after all, you’re old for goodness sakes, give it up…and have you heard of hospice?) and what might get jammed down our throats as a replacement.

    Stay alert, demand answers, and read that fine print and little details

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    1. I’m hoping the Senate will have more sense than the House, but with the GOP so determined to destroy anything with Obama’s name on it, who knows.

      Not holding my breath on the pre-existing conditions thing, since the current bill leaves it up to the states to handle. I still haven’t forgotten when I moved to Colorado. My Cobra coverage was about to run out so I started shopping for another policy (Medicare was still about 2 years away). Nobody would sell me a policy because of my “pre-existing condition.” After really, really pressing one company, I found out that the condition was simply the cost of my prescriptions (no chronic conditions to speak of). My only option was the state’s high risk pool, which was MUCH more expensive than a standard individual policy and offered only catastrophic coverage. But I’d have been crazy, at age 63, to let my coverage lapse.

      I’m glad to be on Mediare now, but I worry about my son and his family. They’ve had a terrible time trying find and keep a decent affordable policy under Obamacare. The insurance companies keep discontinuing the policies (probably because they aren’t profitable enough).

      I’m afraid to ask what they’re proposing in lieu of hospice.

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      1. Cobra is a nightmare (People don’t know until you have to get on it) -much higher than old high risk state pool here.(bigger population there to support it?)
        From what I’ve been able to find out, the “new plan” is not good – and many of the bad aspects of Obama care have been renamed and continue. Great.
        We need a free market system that can sell across state lines. Last thing we need is a federal system which is simply an expanded copy of the dysfunctional and dangerous Veterans hospital administration. One size does not fit all.
        My doc says anyone over 40 has a preexisting condition of some kind: high blood pressure, weight, diabetes, thyroid, lung, heart or kidney issues. So we’re al in it together (younger and younger it seems – what’s with the kids getting health issues at such young ages?)
        Another great story of equal access…but only if it’s cost effective from a doc friend this week: Operated on an 85 yrs woman in great health. Minor procedure and she came through like a champ: cracking jokes both before and after. He went down to argue/arrange with insurance co/social services/medicare a visiting nurse and physical therapy with insurance/system and had planned to check her out in 24 hours. Got it all taken care of and approved Came back to find the “healthcare discussion team” (insurance rep, social worker, hospital administrator, medicare rep) walking out brushing him aside and waving signed papers for her to be shipped off to hospice. He was stunned. The woman was silent, depressed, and totally stressed. The family looked shellshocked. He told me, “It was all done. It worked. She was fine and had miles left in her. All our efforts and they decided she was done. Why did I bother?” I know why. He said she reminded him of his grandmother.
        If they don’t rein in insurance companies who are forcing their decisions down doctor’s throats, and do something about Big Pharm, we’re done.
        On that business interview today with MS Gates, Buffett and that chairman of the board of Hathaway, the interviewer asked why the wealthy who wanted to donate and participate in the “Promise” program these men sponsor didn’t give money and fund medical research. Ya know what those me did – started talking about how Congress and the Federal government had a responsibility to fund research …avoided the whole question. They are such benevolent guys.
        We’re sliding rapidly back into serfdom (see all those games you play will give you such survival skills – you’ll be so popular!)

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        1. I’ve never seen a situation where anyone but doctors and nurses approached a patient in a hospital. “Healthcare discussion teams” shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a sick patient still in a hospital bed. Another reason a family advocate or someone should be there at all times. A patient alone in a hospital bed is defenseless.

        2. Oh, you’ll love this. Remember I said we had one prescription that had a fairly reasonable price forever, then suddenly last weekend, it doubled in price. The pharmacist whispered to call the insurance company – that sometimes they had been seeing weird pricing on weekends. So we did only after hours and multiple “supervisors” who read the script “it could be caused by manufacturer raising prices, or the pharmacy…pointing fingers everywhere. Monday we called the insurance company again to follow up and were basically told the same. We ran down and got the drug’s manufacturer in Israel on the phone and they were shocked. The manufacturer assured us there had been no change in cost/price and that the insurance company makes the pricing decisions in the US. Soooo, it’s not the pharmacy (and we know those people from over the years) and it’s not the manufacturer, soooo it has to be as we suspected, the insurance company. Insurance companies will do us all in. We are deciding who to file complaints with.
          (Also intersting, we have heard that insurance companies are giving bonuses to their “health team discussion” members who” positively resolve” costly to the company patient issues.)

        3. There was a news story here last night. A local man has 3 sons with some rare inherited disease. The drug to treat them had been costing him $2,000 a year per son. The drug company just raised the drug’s price to $86,000 a year! Per son. He made a bajillion phone calls and finally found a company that would sell it to him at a reduced price … of only $65,000 or thereabouts per son per year. It has to do with some loophole in the law that lets drug companies buy the rights to produce orphan drugs and then price them however they want because it grants them exclusivity for 7 years.

          We’re getting jacked around so badly by both the drug companies and the insurance companies … and their lobbyists in Wash. make sure the politicians won’t take any action against them.

        4. All sorts and ages of people are now coming out with the battles we have been fighting quietly for years. A friend’s oldest was born with CF – people don’t realize it’s not just the lungs, but multiple systems malfunctioning – it’s always like putting out wild fires in her body 24/7. When she was born, life expectancy was about 20 – now it’s up to 37 or so. Progress inching forward…but what if some committee had decided she wasn’t worth the cost as she wasn’t going to live long no matter what was done?
          Local woman on here said her husband (around 40) had a stroke, then went into a coma, required special equipment to keep blood circulating in his legs before eventually coming out of it. (One leg was amputated) As he was leaving one of his ICU nurses came in and whispered it was good they had insurance because if he’d been only on medicare or medicaid, they would have pulled the plug on him after 2 weeks – when the medicare/medicaid allowable ran out.
          All sorts of noise, but the ones with real power (Pharm, Insurance Co, and Mega hospital systems) are being very quiet and aren’t being addressed.
          And of course the ones writing the law (all men) will have special coverage.
          So infuriating

  6. LordBeriofBlow: Oh, but those people ARE Christians. They are not nice people, hoiwever. Australian health care is excellent, as a friend of mine who lives there can attest. Trump seems to like it! (We know he knows nothing about it, of course, and was just shooting his mouth off, as usual.)

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... and that's my two cents