I'm stuck with a Health plan I can't get out
- Thread starter oldfart
- Start date
oldfart
Well-Known Member
tell me if you think this is right.
Lets use pot for example. They say if I smoke a oz a week it costs $100 but if that same oz last 2 weeks than it will cost $200. They want to judge cost on how long it takes to use the amount not by amount. 100 aspirins cost $1 a month but they want to charge $2 because you take 1 instead 2 and make them last twice as long.
And it is all fucking legal
give me some more ways to say fuck you
Lets use pot for example. They say if I smoke a oz a week it costs $100 but if that same oz last 2 weeks than it will cost $200. They want to judge cost on how long it takes to use the amount not by amount. 100 aspirins cost $1 a month but they want to charge $2 because you take 1 instead 2 and make them last twice as long.
And it is all fucking legal
give me some more ways to say fuck you
biojuggernaut
Snob
yeah lemme know if you need help with this 
oldfart
Well-Known Member
stoney said:
It is not pot. Here is a photo. Target and Humana claim this is more than a 30 day supply even though they really don't know without blood test that are not due. The open bottle cost $40.00 copay the unopened bottle cost $80. "TAKE HALF THE AMOUNT AND PAY TWICE"
oldfart
Well-Known Member
One time a year you can change your medicare insurance . I've been ripped off before. Big business hires folks to figure out how to fuck the public. To bad we can't do a one on one. Fifty years ago someone rips me off there is a bloody 2x4 saying don't rip me off. Today sad there is nobody head to bloody. Damn I wish for the old days.
weedemon
enthusiast
sorry to hear that is happening to you man. that really sucks.
from how i am understanding it:
1. you have medicine left over that you want to continue using up, but the company is saying here is your next bottle, and we want our money now. while you still have supply from last time. they doubled the price of it and now you will not get another bottle until 2 weeks is up right? or will another 80 dollar bottle show up next week too?
i think your next "fuck you" should be a threat of legal action? it doesn't' sound right. it sounds totally profit, not care driven.
from how i am understanding it:
1. you have medicine left over that you want to continue using up, but the company is saying here is your next bottle, and we want our money now. while you still have supply from last time. they doubled the price of it and now you will not get another bottle until 2 weeks is up right? or will another 80 dollar bottle show up next week too?
i think your next "fuck you" should be a threat of legal action? it doesn't' sound right. it sounds totally profit, not care driven.
Purple-Days
Well-Known Member
I kinda know where Oldfart is coming from. Prescription pricing is screwy. Oh, boy . . . universal health care... ask Oldfart how that's working out.
Since we are self pay, I'll relate a short story about a prescription Pammy used to be on and it's pricing , I'll use round numbers which aren't exact, but close to the pricing.
Her drug ran $200 a month... for 30 - 20mg tabets. There was also a 30 mg and 40 mg pill available. You would suppose the 30mg pills would be $300 a month and the 40 mg pils $400 a month, right? After all the only difference is the amount of 'medicine' and a little talc.
Turns out 40mg tabs were about $220 a month. A pill splitter costs about $5. Finding a Doctor who will prescribe a double dose and let you split pills isn't easy, but if you show them (caring MDs) some numbers they may understand.
$2400 a year on 20mg pills
$1325 a year on split 40mg pills
Same daily dose at about 55% of the cost...
This is one very small reason why universal health care will drive the cost through the roof. If they (the folks who handle and re-distribute the money) can find a way to make more money, they will, never doubt that.
Since we are self pay, I'll relate a short story about a prescription Pammy used to be on and it's pricing , I'll use round numbers which aren't exact, but close to the pricing.
Her drug ran $200 a month... for 30 - 20mg tabets. There was also a 30 mg and 40 mg pill available. You would suppose the 30mg pills would be $300 a month and the 40 mg pils $400 a month, right? After all the only difference is the amount of 'medicine' and a little talc.
Turns out 40mg tabs were about $220 a month. A pill splitter costs about $5. Finding a Doctor who will prescribe a double dose and let you split pills isn't easy, but if you show them (caring MDs) some numbers they may understand.
$2400 a year on 20mg pills
$1325 a year on split 40mg pills
Same daily dose at about 55% of the cost...
This is one very small reason why universal health care will drive the cost through the roof. If they (the folks who handle and re-distribute the money) can find a way to make more money, they will, never doubt that.
oldfart
Well-Known Member
When I worked I had private insurance it cost me 18K a year after I had a stent put in. It cost me all the money I had set aside for retirement. It wasn't worth it because then I was DX with autoimmune nerve disease that the doctors don't know what causing it. It has just about destroyed my feet, toes, hands,fingers and now in my internal organs. AT least I know what is going to kill me. I figure we are all going sometime or other. I walk in the valley of death I fear no evil because I'm the meanest motherfucker there and I'll meet it head on. Been enjoying cannabis since 1959 who would have known it is the only thing makes me feel normal and pain free even for a little while. Long may you live to enjoy cannabis!
Qbit
cannabanana
I don't know how you guys do it. Here in Australia every script costs you the same. $34.20 for general patients and $5.60 for-low income patients, and the government pays the rest. And if you're paying more than about $1300 a year for prescriptions (or about $300 if you're on a low-income) you get it at the concession rate (or free if you already do).
aesthyrian
Blaaaaah
Yeah Qbit, here in America we don't see health care as a right. I think we are one of the few industrialized nations that think that way. Libya has free health care ya know.. :/
Stories like this are just unnecessary and it disgust me that we let the health insurance industry control the value of people's health.
Stories like this are just unnecessary and it disgust me that we let the health insurance industry control the value of people's health.
Qbit
cannabanana
Well hopefully Rupert Murdoch and his empire will go down in flames, and perhaps he'll take your Fux News and all their psycho bullshit ideological propaganda with him. And maybe, just maybe, people will start seeing a bit more sense on this matter and many others. I know, it's extremely wishful thinking, but hey, something has to get me through the day.
PS As an Australian I'd like to apologise profusely for Murdoch. After all, we created the cunt.
PS As an Australian I'd like to apologise profusely for Murdoch. After all, we created the cunt.
Purple-Days
Well-Known Member
"and the government pays the rest" . . . uh . . . where do they get the money? It's a funny question, isn't it?
As if 'the government' is Mommy and Daddy with unlimited resources (read resources as taxes). In the USA over 50% of families are on some kind of government assistance. Our healthcare system here sucks and is getting worse by the day. Some Doctors are now charging yearly retainers (above and beyond insurance) for access. Some Doctors won't even take you on without insurance, no cash accepted, because they know if you are actually paying, and have a say in your healthcare, they don't get a blank check (ie. unlimited diagnostic tests).
Just wait, there is only so much money, when 'the government' starts deciding what is best for your health, do you think they will start deciding what is best for your lifestyle?
I know a fellow on 'government' care. They gave him a quad bypass... did he have to quit smoking? NO. Still smoking. They found a cancer spot on his lung... Did he have to quit smoking? NO. Still smoking, still getting 'government' health care. And still getting cash assistance to buy his cigs...
Libya, oh Libya, how does that national anthem go? Yeah, if I get sick I want to get some of the free Libya health care... What's the infant mortality rate there? 18 per 1000 vs. 8 per 1000 USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate
Maternal mortality? 75 per 100,000 vs. USA 8 per 100,000... http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_mat_mor-health-maternal-mortality
Yeah, hooray for "free" health care!!!
As if 'the government' is Mommy and Daddy with unlimited resources (read resources as taxes). In the USA over 50% of families are on some kind of government assistance. Our healthcare system here sucks and is getting worse by the day. Some Doctors are now charging yearly retainers (above and beyond insurance) for access. Some Doctors won't even take you on without insurance, no cash accepted, because they know if you are actually paying, and have a say in your healthcare, they don't get a blank check (ie. unlimited diagnostic tests).
Just wait, there is only so much money, when 'the government' starts deciding what is best for your health, do you think they will start deciding what is best for your lifestyle?
I know a fellow on 'government' care. They gave him a quad bypass... did he have to quit smoking? NO. Still smoking. They found a cancer spot on his lung... Did he have to quit smoking? NO. Still smoking, still getting 'government' health care. And still getting cash assistance to buy his cigs...
Libya, oh Libya, how does that national anthem go? Yeah, if I get sick I want to get some of the free Libya health care... What's the infant mortality rate there? 18 per 1000 vs. 8 per 1000 USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate
Maternal mortality? 75 per 100,000 vs. USA 8 per 100,000... http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_mat_mor-health-maternal-mortality
Yeah, hooray for "free" health care!!!
WatTyler
Revolting Peasant
Purple-Days said:This is one very small reason why universal health care will drive the cost through the roof. If they (the folks who handle and re-distribute the money) can find a way to make more money, they will, never doubt that.
I don't think that's true, Tom. Or maybe 'only in America'. Here if a drug costs too much money, relative to the expected benefits, then the local NHS trusts won't authorise it to be prescribed (not the government directly). So drugs themselves have to be competitive, kinda. And like Qbits system in Oz, we pay a fixed price as a consumer for any prescribed drug. The government get the rest from taxes on corporations as well as individuals. I'm happy to pay my bit for this, and I'd rather it went on healthcare than foreign policy
We do have limited resources. It does mean in some terminal cases people can be denied access to drugs that could prolong there lives for a certain limited amount of time because that cost benefit ratio is deemed too poor, which is really hard for those affected to accept. But at the same time it does mean that the health system is less likely to throw expensive drugs at every ailment in the first instance, and a far lower incidence of pharmaceutical drug abuse and dependence. I don't know to what extent the parmecutical companies can give the same kind of incentives that it can in the US system, but I expect the actual doctors are well removed from much of this.
As a result the debate over here is more often sympathetic with the doctors and medical profession, who want to help us and give the best treatment they are able to, and the anger is with a system/beauracracy that sometimes fails to deliver or makes us wait and lets the doctors down. Which contrast somewhat with the impression I've got from these boards that in the US the doctors themselves being more involved in the 'business' of healthcare can't maintain the same integrity and are seen as a bigger component of the overall problem. It's the doctors that will screw the government in your scenario?
And don't quite get you're pals situation- you think he shouldn't get free healthcare because he still smokes? What about other risk taking lifestyles/behaviour- rock climbing, parachuting, leaving the house.....meat eating(lol)? Free healthcare can't judge.
wilf789
Non-combustion-convert
The NHS is one of the things I am most proud of in the UK, especially having lived in America for a while and experiencing the hypochondria that accompanies the willy-nilly prescribing of myriad pills and tests. I remember getting a nasty cold in the winter there, and was instantly advised about 5 different medical treatments, all of which would have cost me. I decided to go with the better option, blow my nose when needed and suck it up for a week. The somewhat grimy nature of the NHS (my local hospital, the Kent & Sussex, is jokingly known locally as the Kent & Snuff-it) actually discourages unnecessary trips to accident & emergency departments.
As Wat said, there are certainly shortfalls in the system, but it's never seen as the doctor's fault, usually the bureaucracy required to finance and manage such a sprawling system. The lack of trust in doctors that some in the US seem to have is to me quite worrying.
Of course there's a fair amount of frustration with those who experience the waiting-lists etc of the NHS, understandably so, but paying some tax so that every single person in the entire country has the same basic access to healthcare is something that still gives me hope in a country that is highly capable of draining one's optimism.
As Wat said, there are certainly shortfalls in the system, but it's never seen as the doctor's fault, usually the bureaucracy required to finance and manage such a sprawling system. The lack of trust in doctors that some in the US seem to have is to me quite worrying.
Of course there's a fair amount of frustration with those who experience the waiting-lists etc of the NHS, understandably so, but paying some tax so that every single person in the entire country has the same basic access to healthcare is something that still gives me hope in a country that is highly capable of draining one's optimism.
Purple-Days
Well-Known Member
My point is, if 'the government' is going to control healthcare, they are gonna want to control lifestyle.
If that fellow wants to smoke he can, but I don't think that will be the case if it's 'universal'. Pretend that NHS is not 'the government', but really it is, right? They decide, you have no say.
As you say, certain folks are denied healthcare based on the cost to the system vs. the benefit. ie. We Say So ! Can you say Eugenics? Bet that ruffles some feathers!
Pharmaceutical companies (in the US) charge a fortune for drugs. Wanna know why? Cause in the US they are constantly being sued and the awards are outta sight. $100,000,000 here and another $100M there and who pays, the consumer...
I know all of you think I'm an asshole and that everybody deserves 'free' healthcare... that the pharmaceutical companies are assholes... that the Doctors are assholes... that all it would take is a stroke of the pen and we could all be happy and live as one... oh well...
I have no insurance. Something called pre-existing conditions make insurance useless since they won't cover what's already there. I pay cash and when the Doctor says, your gall bladder must come out and we can do it two different ways, Choice A is $21,000 and choice B is $18,000 guess what... I'll take choice B. When the pills are $2400 vs. $1325 guess what... But left up to the Doctors what do you suppose his choice is?
It's not simple, but 'free' sounds so good doesn't it?
BTW start telling Pharma companies what you will pay and watch what happens to research or orphan drugs. Not to mention the lawsuits and ridiculous awards... They just took Darvon off the market...
ps. read the post above after sending mine. Yes, the folks in the US do not trust the doctors. Many suffer needlessly for that reason. USA, USA, USA
If that fellow wants to smoke he can, but I don't think that will be the case if it's 'universal'. Pretend that NHS is not 'the government', but really it is, right? They decide, you have no say.
As you say, certain folks are denied healthcare based on the cost to the system vs. the benefit. ie. We Say So ! Can you say Eugenics? Bet that ruffles some feathers!
Pharmaceutical companies (in the US) charge a fortune for drugs. Wanna know why? Cause in the US they are constantly being sued and the awards are outta sight. $100,000,000 here and another $100M there and who pays, the consumer...
I know all of you think I'm an asshole and that everybody deserves 'free' healthcare... that the pharmaceutical companies are assholes... that the Doctors are assholes... that all it would take is a stroke of the pen and we could all be happy and live as one... oh well...
I have no insurance. Something called pre-existing conditions make insurance useless since they won't cover what's already there. I pay cash and when the Doctor says, your gall bladder must come out and we can do it two different ways, Choice A is $21,000 and choice B is $18,000 guess what... I'll take choice B. When the pills are $2400 vs. $1325 guess what... But left up to the Doctors what do you suppose his choice is?
It's not simple, but 'free' sounds so good doesn't it?
BTW start telling Pharma companies what you will pay and watch what happens to research or orphan drugs. Not to mention the lawsuits and ridiculous awards... They just took Darvon off the market...
ps. read the post above after sending mine. Yes, the folks in the US do not trust the doctors. Many suffer needlessly for that reason. USA, USA, USA
WatTyler
Revolting Peasant
Purple-Days said:
Well you could argue that they want to already. Just being obligated to provide citizens with healthcare wouldn't necessarily give the government any more powers over lifestyle. They still HAVE to provide access to care. Another incentive to try and control, I suppose, if one's even needed. But it's still more beneficial than the alternative because the focus of government then is on positive preventative treatment/information to reduce the high costs associated with remedial treatment- rather than developing an industry around sick people.
Also, I don't think we really view the NHS and their efforts to influence our lifestyles as 'the government' in the UK. It's through other wider legislation that the government tries to affect our lifestyles here, rather than healthcare IMO.
Choice is the key I think. The US belief system treasures that aspect primarily, whereas any universal system is bound to always take the most efficient (cost:benefit) option. In a perfect world of course we would have the most effective, regardless of cost efficiency. I'm personally prepared to forgo that 'choice' for a system that I believe is ultimately the most humane way of dealing with the misfortune of ill health. As long as I have an equal, transparent and accountable system for making these choices on my behalf (NHS for this, not reallythe governmentPurple-Days said:
). It's meant to be a fair system with no eugenic aspect ( that's crazy 
not feather ruffling, mind 
). It's just the acceptance of limited resources and maximising the good the can be done with them. It's not perfect though.This is very true, and I agree folk should remember some of the benefits of pharma co's and a privatised system. It may be that the potential profits from orphan drugs would suffer from a fairer system of healthcare access, but that's not eugenics. Just limited resources going to where accountable experts identify they can be used most effectively. Is it for eugenic reasons that we haven't bothered to cure cancer yet? No, its principally cost. Logically and arguably you can throw more resources at a problem and a solution will be found.Purple-Days said:
No system is perfect and some one always has to pay. If it's not a constrained government tax funded system then it's the medical insurance companies who will put up premiums. They can do this easier than government can increase taxes. But then it's the poorest customers that may suffer most for the sakes of these expensive orphan drugs?
stoney
Alex
Purple-days you're sounding pretty paranoid about government involvement in your life. 
Universal healthcare =/= government control of your lifestyle. I'm just glad that with the new provisions our President laid out I can stay on my parents healthcare for a few more years and won't get denied by insurance providers for having type one diabetes.
Universal healthcare =/= government control of your lifestyle. I'm just glad that with the new provisions our President laid out I can stay on my parents healthcare for a few more years and won't get denied by insurance providers for having type one diabetes.
Purple-Days
Well-Known Member
I've said before, in this forum, that paranoia is a healthy state of mind.
I think you can argue the eugenics point. There is only X dollars or pounds available to the medical system, choices are made. At some point choices about the future will be made. I have two cousins who were medically sterilized , as children, without consent, because of a gene they carry. Sound like George Orwell? No it's the truth.
Amniocentisis and modern genetic coding can go a long way toward spiking the paranoia factor.
Will we allow the birth of a little girl with MS? Will we allow a boy who isn't going to reach 5'5" ? Where do the choices stop? You tell me...
Which abnormalities will be acceptable? Any??? I would have been a likely abortion candidate with medical foreknowledge of my conditions. Your son or grandson might not fit the mold... Yeah, paranoia is healthy.
+++
And back to my friend in Oregon who won't quit smoking, how mch does he deserve a heart transplant, compared to somebody else. Who gets the limited resources?
I think you can argue the eugenics point. There is only X dollars or pounds available to the medical system, choices are made. At some point choices about the future will be made. I have two cousins who were medically sterilized , as children, without consent, because of a gene they carry. Sound like George Orwell? No it's the truth.
Amniocentisis and modern genetic coding can go a long way toward spiking the paranoia factor.
Will we allow the birth of a little girl with MS? Will we allow a boy who isn't going to reach 5'5" ? Where do the choices stop? You tell me...
Which abnormalities will be acceptable? Any??? I would have been a likely abortion candidate with medical foreknowledge of my conditions. Your son or grandson might not fit the mold... Yeah, paranoia is healthy.
+++
And back to my friend in Oregon who won't quit smoking, how mch does he deserve a heart transplant, compared to somebody else. Who gets the limited resources?