How did Herman Cain get stage IV cancer?

History and past practices ? What history and practices? The USA never has had such program.

Why not compare with other western nations? Plenty have a simular level of care and a lot lower health care costs.

 

ROTF!!

are you married, Margot?? My husband has to be hogtied and dragged to the doctor, yelling the whole way about how he's FINE, he don't need to see a doctor, he'll walk it off...yada yada...

some men are like that, they don't want to admit to being ill...they don't like feeling 'weak'..

 

they all are in financial trouble , The USA has a terrible track record for est. to run programs and based on this I have to side with they will continue to do so

 

or their church...or their family's church...or their friends' church...or their employer and coworkers...OR they make payment arrangements

I had breast cancer in 09; no insurance.

found lump, within a week had a doctors appointment, a diagnostic mammogram (a absolutely horrendous, exhausting two hour ordeal), an aspiration, an appointment with the best breast surgeon in town.

within the month had biopsies on both breast and was scheduled for surgery

within six weeks, had surgery and my first visit with an oncologist.

again...with NO INSURANCE.

how? well we went to the doctor we have always gone to and made payment arrangements ($50 a month), went to the hospital and made payment arrangements ($100 a month) etc...my cancer bills are less than my car payment and certainly my life is worth it (well my husband and son seem to think so)

but! here's the kicker...with insurance my surgery was estimated to cost over $6000...the CASH price? $2100.

my sister's church took up a love offering for me and gave me a check to cover my biopsy so that was paid for (insurance cost - $2300, cash - $600)

my employer gave me time off and $400 bonus to help with expenses..

my friends held a horse show for me and netted another $800...

and a year and nine months later I am cancer free...(knock on wood)


(and the drug company is working with me to supply my cancer treatment meds)

I still owe the doctor $350 and the hospital $500. I don't think that's so bad at all...you can keep your Obamacare, we got this...

 

Not rally.

Because this plan has been created to get trough a USA that has never dealt with such a plan.

Look in a lot of cases the gouvernement does a worse job, but healt care is one where the gouvernement can do it better and cheaper. No profit margins no selecting the most profitable market shares and dumping the rest no hundred times the same costs with a hundred different companies,...

 

I know I was relieved to be able to see my doctor the next day and have the mammogram without waiting. There is nothing more unnerving than having to wait when you have something like that...overnight was too long!

 

Hoping it isnt so bad and begging for money?

This could have just as good been dealt with a state sponsered health insurance, plenty of examples worldwide that do work.

 

I watch my boss bending over backwards to give his employees everything he can. People think it is hard to provide for their families? HE is providing for twentythree families...because without the jobs he provides, they wouldn't be able to take care of their families. He knows that if the company fails, not only will his family suffer but so will his employees.

Small businessmen are the backbone of this country.

 

yes, I do...anyone that doesn't, hasn't had cancer or had a loved one with cancer.

congratulations on catching it in time and surviving.

 

LOL

yep, karma IS a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*), you'll find...

 

No country including ours can afford to provide a colonoscopy to every worried 35 year old with anal bleeding. This is a fantasy. That is why there is an algorithm and doctors use their judgment. It is also why the doctor always says if this gets worse or doesn't change call us back.

the 'country' isn't paying for it....I am! and I'll decide what I can afford and what I can't.

 

no it's not so hard.

and I question how many 'millions' we are talking about? does someone have the link to the figures you are using? are these millions poor people, if so why are they not on Medicaid and why don't they go to the clinics for the low income? if they are not poor then why can't they pay for the procedure themselves?

 

now now...we cant' be THAT logical!!

 

OR to decide that he wasn't eligible due to cost restraints and that he should just be given pain meds til he dies.

 

uh oh..more logic..their heads will explode if you guys keep this up...

 

Fantastic. Hope you never get a spinal cord injury.

 

I didn't beg anyone, they gave because THEY have big hearts and I would MUCH rather take money offered freely with a loving heart then crawl on my belly to a government agency to take money forcibly taken from people.

but that's just me. My friends, regardless of how much money they raise for me, can't tell me I must see this doctor or take that drug or wait this length of time before surgery. I am still free.

Once I sign my life over to the government I am a slave and must wait upon my new overlord's leisure.

I will stay here, safe with the loving embrace of my family and friends...you can go grovel under the cold, dead, unfeeling fist of the government if you want to.

it never fails to crack me up to see these Progressives thinking that it is 'begging' to make your own way in the world but don't see that it is also begging when they waddle into a government office with their little government card, wait in long lines to be waited on by lazy, contemptous officials...

makes me realize that NONE of them have EVER really been in the position to have to. I HAVE, when I was a child and I will never willingly enslave myself to that...I won't be one of those beggers, herded thru like a bunch of cattle.

 

me TOO!!

but I ride horses and ride in cars...so it may happen.

and honestly, I would rather be dead than live like that so I have DNRs and a living will written up.

(and I hope you never get cancer either...good health to you!)

no one here is saying that there should not be a safety net for catastrophic injuries or illnesses...what we are saying is we do not want Obamacare. Period. and not liking Obamacare with its thousands of pages of regulations on everything from vending machines to computer records doesn't mean that we aren't for SOMETHING.

I am, for example, all for expanding Medicaid to cover more people...and for allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines, and I would like to see more variety offered, I would buy a catastrophic insurance policy if it was reasonable.

but see, expanding Medicaid wouldn't have allowed the Progressives to push thru all the regulations they have in Obamacare...it would have been simple, easy for the ordinary citizen to understand, and could have gotten bipartisan support...and no one in Washington really wants that..they would much prefer us at each other's throats.

 

really where? who is against that?


lets raise medicaid income rate


pass a bill saying insurance companies can't drop coverage

pass a bill that they can't exclude PE conditions.

problem solved.

instead we have a 2,000 page bill.

 

Woah, woah, woah. That'd be an intrusion by the Fed Gov't into the free market. I thought you Cons were against that kind of stuff...

 

Listen, people asked questions, I am giving answers. We already have medicare and medicaid. they have to be fixed.

Back to the facts of the op, Cain beat death by using private healthcare. move along....move along.

 

That's a very touching story... You should retell it when Herman Cain actually gets breast cancer.

Did you just compare a stage I lumpectomy with stage IV colon cancer? When will this Republican ignorance about basic biology and science in general stop?

Here are the numbers for colon cancer. A simple colectomy costs something like $34,700




The cost of a liver resection is something like $20,000.

One year of chemo costs something like $54,000.



So if you got stage IV colon cancer here is what you are looking at...
$34,700+$20,000+$54,000=$108,700

So you would pay $150 a month (based on your current payment plan) and pay this debt off in 60.389 years [($108,700/$150)/12].

The 5 year survival for stage IV colon cancer is <5%.

So in all likelyhood you woud be dead in 5 years. By the time you passed away you would have paid at most $9,000 on your $108,700. Ye ol' taxpayer, responsible people with insurance, and the doctors would be stiffed for the remaining $99,700. Wow. What a patriot. Do you hear yourself?

Are Republicans really suggesting the best course of action is to seek treatment for Stage IV Colon CA without insurance? You're proud of that?! It is this type of irresponsible behavior that is bankrupting our system.

Between this Cain guy probably skipping screenings and you skipping insurance I'm beginning to see why you guys wrecked the country so badly when you had the White House.

 

Republican ignorance is amazing.

By your nonsensical utterings I can easily deduce you have never heard the words, adverse selection. Its funny how you don't even understand the basics of medicine or the insurance industry but you still rattle off these posts criticizing the president's plan.

Equally amazing is how a guy like Hermain Cain can make six figures and apparently still not get adequate colon cancer screening. Yet it doesn't stop him from making foolish statements about health care from the podium.

 

Is that right? I go to the VA clinic every six months and they have not done a colonoscopy on me.

As for Cain; I have no more idea than you have, what happened in his case. He surly had the best insurance than money can buy and whatever his doctors were doing he got advanced cancer, or are you saying that the whole thing is made up.

So in all likelyhood you woud be dead in 5 years. By the time you passed away you would have paid at most $9,000 on your $108,700. Ye ol' taxpayer, responsible people with insurance, and the doctors would be stiffed for the remaining $99,700. Wow. What a patriot. Do you hear yourself?

The idea that some people can't pay is sighted as the reason that the costs are so high for those who can pay.

 

I wouldn't be too worried. Most people without risk factors such as a family history of Colon CA or diseases such as UC start receiving screening colonoscopies at age 50. They do not generally do them every two to three years. Colon cancer is a slow growing cancer and if you have no major risk factors and a well done colonoscopy with clean results you can wait up to 10 years for another colonoscopy. You can supplement colonoscopies with annual fecal occult blood tests.

There are other tests that can be done at various intervals and guidelines do change. Just educate yourself about what screening tests you may need and be sure to mention them to your doctor if you think they are not being done. It's your health. In any system mistakes happen. A lot of the time what patients think is a mistake isn't but it's better to be safe than sorry. No one is going to be upset if you ask about cancer screening tests and if they do get upset to hell with them. It's your life.

I personally have my doubts that Hermain Cain was proactive about his healthcare. It's possible he strictly adhered to the published colon cancer screening guidelines but it is more likely that he did not. I think it is a major failing of the press that no one has questioned him about this issue. If he is going to appoint himself a health care system expert he should be queried about his own possible lack of personal responsibility in regards to health care.