Should we cover ED drugs, fertility treatments so we can have octomoms everywhere, abortions, unlimited morning after pills, STD drugs handed out like candy, bariatric and lapband procedures, botox for "migranes", and the lists goes on and on....Are we going to pay for at home birth in mobile tub clinics?
Ooh, please sign me up for an "at home birth in mobile tub clinics," whatever that is! I'm glad to know that home births are perceived to be on par with Viagra and Botox and treating STDs.
The ignorance of the American public is so astounding as to be laughable at times. Just read through some of the comments--the standard stuff about teenage welfare queens and how D.C. is going to sink into the sea (because, you know, universal health care is SO EEEEVILLL).
Oh Rixa. I got so excited when I read the title of your post in my reader. As you know, we had to cross two state lines in a snowstorm (a 4-hour drive) after I went into labor just to have a legal out-of-hospital assisted birth. So I was VEEERY excited about funding for a mobile waterbirth clinic. LOL
ReplyDeleteOh well...will keep trudging forward in hopes of change.
Hugs,
~Shaye
I know it's not within the scope of this blog, but the part about fertility drugs gets to me too. There are so many women out there who are desperately fighting to have just ONE baby, and can't afford fertility treatments as they are "elective". These women are not Octomom. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteMrsW, I wholeheartedly agree with you. We faced several years of infertility before I got pregnant with Zari, and I even did a round of IVF (once we got a new job in another state that covered fertility treatments). It was unsuccessful and I got pregnant on my own the next month. There's definitely sexism going on in what gets covered and what doesn't.
ReplyDeleteI'm both intrigued and nervous at the idea of a mobile waterbirth clinic. I imagine it would be similar to a truck I was driving behind a few weeks ago, that had an enormous translucent plastic tank of water strapped to the back. The water was sloshing like huge ocean waves and I kept a fair distance behind it because I was convinced each time we stopped at a light that the water wold somehow come out of the enclosed container and sweep my car away.
ReplyDeleteOkay, non sequitir over.
I was actually excited to see the title of this post, and then disappointed to read the actual content. But ya know, people saying crap like that doesn't really phase me anymore. It just makes me feel pity for the idiots who believe this stuff because it shows a basic ignorance and a lack of ability to understand anything that is not based in scaremongering. I jsut want to pat them on the head and say, "Poor poor you, it's hard being a moron, isn't it??"
Quite honestly, they need to slow this bill down, no matter if you are for it or against it...the congressmen can't even tell you what's in it, nor can the President! It's so confusing. I read part of it that will outlaw private insurance...WHAT?? They even have that in the UK, so people can get better care than the system the "average" people have to live with. I think it should be illegal for them to vote on something they don't even know the full extent of.
ReplyDeleteSo totally ignorant! As someone coping with infertility, I can only speak to that aspect. In states where insurance covers IVF, there are actually fewer multiple births because people are more comfortable implanting only one or two embryos. In states where people pay out of pocket for the whole thing, there are more multiples because it's so expensive couples want to increase their odds as best they can.
ReplyDeleteHaha! Oh, Rixa. I adore your posts.
ReplyDeleteOh man, I think I'll skip the comments for the sake of my blood pressure. Lol. I had to gently explain to my mom recently that things like Planned Parenthood do ALOT more than abortions! And she's pretty darn informed, but like so many, just picks and chooses what she wants to be informed ABOUT. Ah well.
ReplyDeleteI'll take a mobile waterbirth clinic! Lol.
I totally agree with Michelle! I wonder what this country would look like if everyone who actually voted on bills throughout history (not just the past 6 months) had actually *read* them. My guess is quite different! I wish there were a law requiring legislators to actually read what they vote into law. Methinks the laws might be a tad shorter, and might actually make more sense!
ReplyDelete-Kathy
Oh, I am afraid to read the comments. I try to live in a world of denial of such ignorant attitudes most of the day.
ReplyDeleteA mobile waterbirth unit, huh? You know, when I was in the tub in my labor, all I could think of is, why isn't this on wheels? I had places to go, people to see, you know.
Michelle, private insurance is not illegal in the UK, and it would not be illegal under the new proposed legislation.
ReplyDeleteDid you read the part in the above comments about scaremongering?
Sorry for the triple posting, but I feel compelled to nip this "private insurance would be made illegal" BS in the bud:
ReplyDeleteIt is explained well here:
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/bill-does-not-make-private-health-insurance-illegal
No reason to make up fake reasons to be against legislation. And, the entire text of the bill is available for anyone to read, legislators included.
Oh, man.... this is why i have given up reading most blogs, forums, etc. It's crap like this that i totally can't tolerate. And treating STDs shouldn't occur? Hope Mr. Pious never sleeps with anyone unless using a condom...oh...wait, that might be considered immoral birth control....
ReplyDeletesigh...
I'm sorry, but my beef with all this is how they're planning to pay for it. They're taxing the crap out of folks who are working their tales off. My brother has been out of work for almost a year and he never earned enough to be above the poverty line. Because he's a student (trying to improve himself) he's not eligable for unemployment or anything...and he doesn't have but $200 to his name, still the IRS is still demanding he pay $350 for an error the IRS made. My brother does not have health coverage, nor does he feel it's the governments job to pay for him...despite his hard luck. Yet, he's being asked to float the backs of others who probably have more than he does...who can more easily obtain aid when he can't. It's wrong, wrong, wrong.
ReplyDeleteAll the regulations from our wonderful government are more likely the cause of the outrageous rise in health care cost. I really think it's just going to continue to get worse. These sorts of things do not help the working man. From what I can see, if we can't even afford to maintain the services we've promised already (disability getting cut off to those already on the roles), why do they think we can keep doing more?
So please don't assume that anyone who opposes all this "change" in health care is ignorant and uneducated. That's just as much a cop out as the comments you feel are hysterical.
It's not that I feel that opposing universal health care is ignorant or hysterical, in and of itself. But most of the comments in this particular article are quite ridiculous. They're not even getting close to reasoned debate, but relying on hearsay, anecdote, slippery slope arguments.
ReplyDeleteAngoraKnitter,
ReplyDeleteI am trying to come up with some government program that was not riddled with wasteful spending, that kept costs down, and that delivered what was promised. Can't think of one. I'm with you on this one -- taxing everyone to provide insurance coverage for some (and it won't even cover everyone, but will cost a projected $1,000,000,000,000 over the course of ten years) -- what will this do to our economy?? It's already in the toilet as it is -- it seems like this will just be pulling the handle.
-Kathy
Actually MomTHF, I read it in the actual bill. I can't remember the page number, but there was a link on to the bill and this particular part of it on a forum that I am a member of. And yes, I am well aware that private insurance is available in the UK...that was my point actually:)
ReplyDeleteStill think it should be illegal for anyone to vote on a bill they haven't read.
I wanted to post more on the bill and how if not changed, private insurance will still exist for those who currently have it, but new policies will not be written, and company insurance must be "approved" by the government ...this is the house version of the bill:
ReplyDeleteOn page 16 of H.R. 3200, in section 102 entitled Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage, the bill clearly states, "the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the bill becomes law. As verified by the House Ways and Means Committee last week, this provision means that this health care bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not allowing any new policies to be written after the public option becomes law.
I always think it's hilarious when somebody goes off on a rant about some political issues and presents things that don't seem bad to me at all, but rather like GREAT IDEAS - which of course is not his intention. He's trying to make all of those things sound bad and outrageous. Instead, it was like, Hey, great idea! Mobile water birth units! Love it! I mean, don't we want to put measures in place that make health care LESS EXPENSIVE? You know, like midwifery model of birth?
ReplyDeleteUm, are there really people on this planet who believe that STDs should go UNTREATED? We really don't have any kind of awareness of public health issues in this country, I guess. Or more precisely, we have generalized hostility to public health and all it entails because the essence of public health is that everyone's health affects everyone else's - therefore, everyone deserves coverage/ care.
And of course the great irony of his rant against fertility treatment coverage is that EVERY COUNTRY with nationalized health care and coverage of fertility treatments has limitations on this treatment - thus octomom is not possible in those countries, because no doctor would be permitted to transfer 7 or 8 embryos. Whereas here in the US, because it's privately-paid, anything goes!
@angoraknitter - I have respect for anybody who thoughtfully opposes (or supports) any issue. I would just like to say (again, respectfully) that study after study has shown that is it NOT gov't regulation that has made health care outrageously expensive in this country - rather , the opposite, gov't deregulation & privatization of health care. Every body is trying to turn a profit, esp insurance companies, to the detriment of the American people. Doctors give too many unnecessary tests and interventions (and these with no demonstrated improvement in outcome).
ReplyDeleteNow, the question of how to pay for it, I agree is complicated and a concern.
I do have a lot of trepidation about government funded health care -- I just don't see how it is supposed to be cheaper for us to add multiple layers of bureaucracy and hoops to jump through into the health care process. Especially when the government can't help but complicate and lower the quality of SO many things it's gotten involved with.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is idealistic, but I'd rather see healthcare remain private but legislate itself better -- reward doctors who practice evidence-based, intervention-light medicine and punish those who order unnecessary tests and interventions just to make a buck. Come up with a better system for handling malpractice so that the real suits get through quickly and simply and frivolous suits don't make it through at all.
I realize that this system would involve a lot of trust, but government health care would too -- it's just a question of who you're trusting.
MrsW & the Anon before her both bring up some good points.
ReplyDeleteWhat has driven up the cost of health care? Quite simply, that we have more tests and procedures at our disposal than ever before, for one. For another, we have gotten too used to "the insurance" paying for it, apparently forgetting that when "the insurance" pays for something expensive, it must recoup its costs by increasing the cost of coverage for everyone. Many doctors are performing unnecessary tests, out of fear of litigation should they overlook something that some obscure test might have uncovered; other doctors are performing unnecessary tests because they get money for every test they order. And patients willingly submit to these tests because "it doesn't cost them anything." But that's wrong; because it does. It costs everyone something with an increase in rates.
Health care was cheaper when people died easier. Now we have chemotherapy to fight cancer, which may run into the millions of dollars. We have dialysis machines, and organ transplants. We have major advances in technology, drugs, treatments, surgeries, you name it... but it comes at a cost. Just like the difference between steak and hamburger. I'm not being a jerk -- just showing the realistic side of things -- and this is regardless of who pays, whether private individual, private insurance, or government entity. Somebody has to pay for the better health care, eventually.
One way to get health care to be cheaper is, instead of having a copay when you go to the doctor and that's all, with all other costs being hidden from you, is for you to pay all costs up front, and then be reimbursed. It's called "sticker shock." Recently I read about a woman who was charged $4K for an epidural (once all expenses were calculated), but her insurance picked up most of the tab. I wonder how many women would have an epidural if they had to pay out-of-pocket for it, and how many would instead take childbirth classes and/or hire a doula so that they would be less likely to need an epidural. If people had to pay for their hospital and doctor bills, how many would take better care of themselves to avoid the heart attack in the first place. Sometimes a safety net makes people less cautious.
The problem is, there are no easy solutions! In the current system, some people are falling through the cracks; but in a different system, you just move the cracks. Maybe everybody will be "covered" by insurance, but then insurance may pay for less. We already see that some insurance companies refuse to pay for certain procedures because they're too expensive; I've recently read about people in the UK having to wait 24 hours+ in the ER waiting room because the hospitals are so overloaded; and people on waiting lists for 6-9 months or even longer for procedures that we take nearly for granted here in the US. Sure, we have to pay for them, whereas in the UK it's "free" -- but there is *always* a cost, even if it's not necessarily in money.
-Kathy
As you know I am a bit stodgy about birth outside the hospital. But there are still hospitals that will not blink at doing a water birth. DOes not phase me in the least. Since as a YOung nurse I was elected to do all the water births. Mothers and spouses seemed very happy with the births. I do think nore research needs to do done on water birth and the outcomes of the neonate. I have never seen a sick neonate from a water birth but I have seen a very sick neonate from meconium aspiration. We need more research in this area. Honest, nonagenda research. I just want them to tell me the truth without any agenda.
ReplyDeleteRixa I am so proud of you and your intelligent stances and opinions on this stuff!
ReplyDeletePeople who are against universal healthcare must have never gone without, or just buy into anything the conservatives are saying, without even thinking.
We pay 225 a week for health insurance that sucks and we have copays we cant afford so we dont even usually go to the doctor. A WEEK you read right. Ill take whatever Obama is cookin' up and no it will not be illgal to have private insurance.
Love ya!
Housefairy,
ReplyDeleteI don't have health insurance, and I oppose universal health care.
-Kathy
I do not want Universal Health Care because I am sick of being involuntarily subjected to incompetent "care" and am afraid UHC would make it worse. My opinion is that one way to improve things is to prevent providers from reporting *anything* on credit reports. Payment has to be voluntary. Refusing payment would help (simpler than litigation. Economics 101.) That means no payment from the government either. There's definitely something wrong: I was told I was "too smart" to be a doctor because I was in the top %ile on every test I took.
ReplyDeleteMost of the people I know have been unemployed for the past eight years. Some Jewish, all smart. Our industry (software in the SF Bay Area) got signed away and the remaining employers wouldn't hire us. Extreme! Makes me wonder how many Jewish doctors are left these days. (Or lawyers or... what was the other traditional Jewish career again? Bookkeeper? Uh, Rabbi?)
ReplyDeleteAnd how does someone recover from that!