Freedom: Guns versus Health Care

So your employer doesn't offer health insurance?

 

yup

 

Wait till you throw ur back out, or get a hernia...
Not a good time to not be covered.

 

Thats excellent advice.

...as long as its not also being presented as a justification to force me to comply with the advice, as the context of the discussion could indicate.

 

I was in the same place for a pretty good stretch with respect to no 401k and no health care coverage. 1987 to 1995 no health insurance and I never really gave a s about a 401k until probably 2007: but I did start up my own Ameritrade account in 2000. It's an easily understandable gamble from my point of view. To this day I live with a mild hernia I caused myself carrying a pair of JBL Cabaret 4691Bs like I was the Hulk, with each hand on the handle and the Cabs angled against my shoulders. I'd struggle to even lift one in that manner today. In lab in college I broke a cardinal rule of rubber stoppers and glass tubing: never push. I think I finally got someone to stitch that up for me - might have been a veterinarian, hahaha....

@Vernan89188 That's not entirely the way it works. If you are "lucky" enough to make too much money after your service then you are disqualified from VA medical care, which by many accounts it seems maybe I'm not missing all that much, but my insurance coverage through work has never resulted in any significant expense until I got married and my wife was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2016. One bag of the MD Anderson poison was damn near $50k. Not too long ago on a follow-up visit I accompanied with my wife, I personally observed a young lady having a very bad day, being turned away from services because her insurance wasn't lining out. No great skill was required to know this, as she was speaking with the receptionist and with someone on her cell to try and figure out why her insurance credentials weren't being approved.

@Alwayssa, how about that non-profit emergency room service? How did that help this lady out?

I have a friend I've known since elementary school who became a Pediatrician. He is a firm advocate of single payer, but, I'm not by any stretch of my imagination certain that I know what exactly that means.

 

Both issues are about control In the US, we spend more on "health care" per person than the average family earns in the rest of the world. Between providers and big pharma, they wield tremendous political power and have successfully gained access to tax money. They enjoy record profits while Americans are sicker than ever. Its not about health; its about power.

Armed citizens make it difficult to impose overreaching control.

Healthcare for all and gun control are not positions of concern for health or human life. Its all about power.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/07/politics/senate-democrats-climate-health-care-bill-vote/index.html

Republicans used the weekend "vote-a-rama" to put Democrats on the spot and force politically tough votes. They were also successful in removing a key insulin provision to cap the price of insulin to $35 per month on the private insurance market, which the Senate parliamentarian ruled was not compliant with the Senate's reconciliation rules. The $35 insulin cap for Medicare beneficiaries remains in place.

Insulin ffs, I don't see the Ds as being in some ways a significantly better choice than the scum Rs are in supporting corporations over constituents: "compromise" on a basic medicine such as insulin? Why? Sinema and Manchin with their personal pharma interests would have bailed on the deal?

Ugh, sorry, a pet peeve of mine, I've taken a notion to compare diabetes deaths with gun deaths for awhile now. Difficult though that actually is to make for policy purposes, right? Exclude suicides from gun deaths and exclude diabetic deaths where patients had full access to all available treatment options - a more difficult filter to apply to the later statistic than the former I bet.

 

Houston Methodist in Downtown Houston will be the more optional choice. Most of their cancer doctors have trained at MD Anderson. Houston Methodist is listed #1 in the state for total hospital care by Texas Tribune and Texan Monthly Magazine recently. They have programs there that may help her. And yes, cancer treatments can and do get very expensive. $50k is the "cheap" stuff and I have seen prices in upwards of $110k per treatment. But Houston Methodist does not have, I believe, a level 1 trauma facility. And with cancer ER, you need a level 1 trauma facility, like MD Anderson. MD Anderson will not accept patients with certain health insurance. One of them will be any ACA care plan. So, this happens, however, the staff should have referred her to Houston Methodist given her type of health insurance IMO.

 

People don't die from Diabetes, they die from complications of diabetes such as heart disease for instance.

The irony of insulin is that the Rs were all for this when Trump did the executive order to lower the price. The Dems just codified that EO into law. Insulin can get expensive such as Novolog R 1000 mil for $335 and up. Insurance pays most of it. And the best option is mail order service if your insurance has one.

 

My wife received treatment because at the time she was covered under my employment plan. Although you seemingly have professional exposure to the healthcare industry, I find that your post in this case exemplifies that, rather than some actual empathy and appreciation of the point I continue to attempt to convey to you. And the example of the other woman struggling with cancer at the non-profit MD Anderson because she lacked the proper health insurance falls apparently upon some form of the same blindness that you seem to exhibit due to your professional experience. Curious, do I have this correct - that you are employed in the healthcare business, perhaps even on the insurance side of it?

 

I replied only to what you posted. There are details that were left out which means I could not provide any more details about the situation, especially the woman who could not get care at MD Anderson because of the health insurance card situation. I can understand why some details were left out. That being said, what you asked did not require empathy or appreciation. There is a time and place for that IMO.

No, I am not employed in the health care business. I am just a well-traveled, well-read individual. My professional experience is legal, not health care.

 

You offer arguments here at PF that are amazingly simple to shred. How about the communications business? Which part of the Constitution authorizes the government to regulate the electromagnetic field?

Next time you post here how about you put forth some effort?

 

Ah, I was afraid of this. You are correct on some of your unsolicited personal advice here, but you seem to be making some erroneous assumptions about my situation as well. Being as this thread has more or less run dry, if you are really interested then let me know and I'll be happy to share the story of the end of my employment with Jacobs Engineering and the extent that health insurance considerations played a role as a competing consideration against offshoring, political considerations of interest to some folks I would think. Not all that interesting to me, actually. I'm mostly here for the writing practice and occasionally the debate practice.

Regarding the use of the term "collective", it's just a phrase I chose to substitute for the Government. I found it amusing because @modernpaladin uses it quite often, and it's kinda cool and a bit more neutral than "the Government", in my opinion. If you don't understand how we are all mutually interdependent on so much stuff in the world we live in then let me know: I can provide you with numerous examples of all the things you seemingly take for granted. These are things managed by the collective, i.e. the Government. C'mon, I dare you to deny the extent that you personally depend on things maintained by the Government, all levels inclusive.

We agree that Cobra is a joke. That's excellent. However, we seem to have exceedingly different experiences with what type of coverage is available at the individual level. I often goby the principle that where there's smoke there's fire, and your assertion that you only paid $200 out of $1M looks like smoke to me. What were your premiums? Who was you insurer? What type of policy do they currently offer and at what price? Yes, I understand you are now past that and thankfully so. There are only a very few people I've ever known that were so loathsome I've wished ill health upon them, among any other calamities that might've befallen them, but you are certainly not one of them. Just to be clear, if you have time, my question is for you to look up the company that provided you with such outstanding coverage and share it here. I'm sure you'll have to recalculate a little bit how much it actually cost you because it seems to me that you did not include the premiums, eh?

$27k for a wheelchair and you're cool with that because it's not your money?

And for all the rest of you, I'm just pointing out that out of all the crap we can discuss around here, this is one of the most important topics to discuss. I have never once made the statement that health care is a right, and I could give a flying f about your bs interpretation of the 2A, possibly one of the poorest examples of the English language ever committed to parchment. As far as I'm concerned for all you constitutional wanna be scholars, the meaning of the text is easily that unless you are in the national guard then you have no right to a firearm. @557, you and the rest of your rural ranchers are exempt from this opinion as well. Brittany Spears' body guard dog-walker too, I suppose. Actually, it's not a subject of interest to me, gun control. It's very divisive and I'm ok with the gun violence compared with the numerous other jacked up laws and regulations that bother me much more. I'm just pointing out a certain comparative fact that owning a gun doesn't provide anywhere near anything that makes folks free, in my opinion, of course.

 

Hah! I do a lot of work with them through my employer. Small world.

...well, big company, but still small world.

As far as the 2A goes, 'the militia' is defined in US Code as all able bodied males aged 18-45 who are or intend to become citizens. The NatGuard is defined as a subset of 'the militia', specifically 'the organized militia.' Objectively (and legally), the 2A applies to 'the militia', not just 'the organized militia.' As to whether its a mistake of the english language, maybe, but its clearly a very deliberate one. The people that wrote US Code surely knew what the 2A said when they defined 'the militia '

 

You would quibble over the difference between organized and "well regulated"!?

 

Absolutely. 'Organized' in the military lexicon means 'activated', as in active duty. The Governor of a state has the lawful authority according to most state constitutions to 'organize the militia', which means to call them into service. It has nothing to do with how well regulated they are.

And on that subject, if we go by the English-Oxford dictionary of the late 1700s and 1800s, 'regulate' means to ensure adequate supply. Not so much restrict by authority as it means today. A 'well supplied' militia being necessary to the security of a free state makes way more sense...

For context, 10 US Code, which defines the militia, was written in 1956, right when the Civil Defense program was being born. If you're not familiar with the Civil Defense program, it was an effort to supply and train the civilian population to survive a nuclear war or help thwart an enemy invasion throughout most of the cold war.

 

...

 

No disrespect, but if you're going to take the route of discussing the details of the English language with respect to the 2A, or even the 2A at all when I've already stated that I only brought it up for the purpose of comparing what some folks talk about when they mention freedom and how guns provide it, but don't even consider how our health care system binds us to our employers then they live in a vastly different US of A than I do.

I like guns. Here's a shot of some stuff I own. If the US were to go as far as Japan does about owning firearms given the numerous other problems we face as a society specifically in terms of preventable deaths then I'd have beef with that, but I'd turn these in and not really worry about it all that much. Wait, I might stash the 92FS and a clip, just in case, hahaha....

 

It depends on what freedom you're talking about. Guns arent really the proper solution to the problem of really expensive healthcare. Guns are the solution to govt troopers trying to haul your family off to a re-education center. We're not there yet. Its possible that having guns provides us the 'freedom' from ever getting there. I certainly would prefer to never find out for sure either way.

 

Yes, that is possible and I'd like to write not likely, but unfortunately given some of the other things I consider pretty strong facts you have a point, imo....

 

Negative and positive rights I guess. If you violate gun rights you are doing something to someone. If you violate healthcare rights you are not doing something for someone.

 

Sorry I don't do requests. No part of the constitution authorizes government to regulate radio frequency signals. They didn't exist in 1790. It is regulated by law in order to prevent chaos. It is no different that any other regulation. You see, you already knew that. You just insisted on making a special request.

 

So your suggestion to "read the constitution" is completely unrelated to what you view as legitimate authority of the government. By your logic, since insulin and corn syrup didn't exist in 1790 then they are both also subject to extra-constitutional regulation. Your beef with the government becoming involved with heath care is obviously something other than whether or not there is a Constitutional basis for law. But, you just don't want to put forth the effort to explain why you think health care isn't at least as important as communications.

Maybe you should read up on communications technology. How do you imagine everyone has independent links on their cell phones? Not due to government regulation, nope.
You can thank this chic for it:

 

The same thing is true for food. And water. Without which, you'll die a lot faster than you could from most fixable medical conditions. 3/3/3. You can go 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food, after those limits, it becomes fatal. You're a human being in a country that at least used to pride itself on rugged individualism, which means after your parents are done taking care of you, the responsibility becomes your own to do so.

That includes paying for healthcare that you receive, either out of pocket, or via insurance, which is the route most people go. But it is voluntary, and optional.

I think it's relevant to your OP, so by all means, share away.

I figured that out, but that's also why I called you out for it. We are not (supposed to be) a "collective". We are not the Borg, and resistance is not futile. We are 330,000,000 individuals, give or take, who live in a country delineated by borders and designed by some really brilliant men, especially considering the time in which they lived.

By all means, please educate me. Please show me how you and I, two total strangers who don't even know each other's real name and until recently were not aware the other existed, and who, in all likelihood, don't live within hundreds of miles of each other, maintain "mutually interdependent" lives. And please, don't tell me about roads that the "collective" paid for, or police that mostly clean up crime scenes after the fact rather than preventing them (I'm not knocking them, they don't have crystal balls, just stating, or any of those other services. I know about them, and I know they need to be funded, and where it's possible, I advocate funding things through user fees, like weight/mile taxes, tolls, admission fees for recreational areas and parks, tuition for public schools, carriage fees for public transportation, etc., etc., etc. Not all things can be paid for that way, no need to explain that to me.

But some things belong in the government's wheelhouse, and others do not. Acquiring and paying for healthcare is one of the things, with exceptions like the very poor, the old (though 65 isn't nearly as old as it used to be), the disabled, ex-military, and I'm sure some others I'm not thinking of as well. But just as you must grow, kill, or buy things to feed yourself, you must also buy the services from healthcare professionals.

So... edumacate me, by all means.

You're going to just have to give me the benefit of the doubt. I checked into the hospital where my wife works (and who also insures me, for what I can guess based on one of the boxes on her W2 is at the cost of tens of thousands per year), she had to pay an ER fee of $200 (which they took out of her pay at $50/paycheck for 4 pay periods), and everything that came after that apparently counted as part of that ER visit, even though it took months. Years, really, if you factor in my other multiple hospital visits after the first one, though there were other fees for those, but with little out of pocket.

I don't have any sort of documentation to present, and frankly even if I did, I wouldn't post that sort of super personal stuff here, so your options are to believe me, or not. Keep in mind, however, that one reason she took that job was because it came with essentially platinum-plated insurance. She had other options with a higher salary, but despite the fact that we were both completely healthy (as in, rarely needed any healthcare more intensive than an advil or two), we opted for the "better safe than sorry" option, and it turns out that was a wise choice.

We made a similar choice when we bought this smaller fixer upper for cash, rather than getting a McMansion and being saddled with a mortgage payment, one that we could not have made after I became unable to work, so another wise choice. Had we taken the McMansion Road, we would have lost the house (eventually), and would not have had many options. We also got lucky with the timing as our property has more than tripled in value since we bought it in 2016. Some was our sweat equity, most of it my wife's after all this happened to me, and the money invested, for example we have a brand-new roof coming on Friday (which was an unexpected expense done because our insurance co said do it or we'll drop you, though it needed to be done), and a lot of it was because this area became basically the #1 place people were moving to, many of whom were accustomed to paying much more for homes, rent, and property taxes, so that drove up prices rapidly, too.

But now I'm off topic and rambling.

Thank you. By any metric you might care to use, I should be dead several times by now. In fact, I was, but they brought me back. Visited the other side and all that fun stuff and remember doing so. Well, parts of it.

Our insurance company is BC/BS, but aside from that and the info above, I don't know what exact policy we have, what the total costs are, or any of that. But it's not cheap.

It boils down to supply and demand. As a percentage of the population, not all that many need wheelchairs, and of those who do, few are my age and ability (and desire) to get out and about again. And even fewer have some specific issues that can cause extreme discomfort unless the seating positioning is perfect, and extremely well padded.

Because of all of that, the few companies that make them need to make large profit margins on a per unit basis, or they'll cease to exist, and the chairs won't be available at any price. Imagine a motorized lay-z-boy that goes so flat that people can and do sleep in them. That's what I'm getting in a few weeks.

I didn't even know insurance would cover it, or I would have had one years ago. I can get a new one every 5 years, at least as long as I'm covered, and then after I hit 65, from medicare or whatever. That's 3 or 4 new wheelchairs from now so I don't give it much thought. My last day as a hospital resident (so far, anyway, and not that I'm counting or anything) was April 3rd, 2020. Had I known they would cover such a chair, I would have had one by April.

Now I just need to find a lawyer that isn't flaky to help me with social security. I see people with f-ing back spasms on lifetime disability, meanwhile I can't even stand or change my own underwear and they keep turning me down. I'm not big on people sucking at the gubmint teat, but disabled folks is one category I've always made a mental exception for. And written, in newspapers and places like this. Not to mention all the money I paid in over decades.

The Supreme Court has consistently and over the course of many decades, said differently. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is not English that is hard to understand. And as has been pointed out already, Federal Law makes most of the Country a member of the Federal Militia, so there goes that argument.

 

Read more carefully. I already explained that regulations are details covered by law and not the constitution. The problem is price controls whether it is insulin, gasoline or corn syrup.