REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

"Part Time" Cut to 24 Hours a Week.... At Least Where I Work

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Thursday, May 23, 2013 05:13
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Sunday, May 12, 2013 2:39 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


In the last few months, I was actually speaking highly of the Obamacare plan to friends and family. Of course, those in my family who do make quite a bit of money initially dismissed my optimism simply because I make roughly 70% of the national poverty level wages and I am now one of the people at the bottom who have the most to gain from it, and I can't really say I blame them for thinking that way.

My biggest argument against them was simply "the system is already broke".

When my brother had a brain hemmorhage and suffered multiple strokes back in 1987, his total bill sent to my Dad's insurance was for only 100k. This included a three month stay in a hospital bed (1 1/2 months of that in a coma we didn't know if he'd ever wake up from), all of the drugs and IV fluid needed to keep a person alive in a coma, all of the food necessary when he woke up, physical and speech therapy, and oh.... FREAKIN' BRAIN SURGERY!

When the bills came for all of that, my Dad's insurance from work picked up the 100k bill and the hospital was happy.

Fast forward to late 2012....

My brother had a pretty bad day. He was found in the morning at my grandma's house sleeping next to an empty bottle of his anti-depressant pills and was rushed to the hospital where he remained sleeping for nearly two days. These pills aren't known to have killed anybody in large doses except in old people, so there was no pumping of the stomach. No surgery was done of any kind. Really, the only services rendered was a bed and what boils down to a hospital run suicide watch for 10 days before he was released.

Now, surely, given the high-level surgery and extensive care given my brother for a quarter of a year mentioned above, this 10 day stay couldn't be more than about 5 thousand dollars, even with inflation, right?

WRONG!!!!!!

THE HOSPITAL BILL ALONE WAS FOR 70 THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!!!! (That's not even including all of the "third-party" bills).


There's two points to be made from this story...

1. Forget about the raise in gas prices. That's a mere pittiance in comparison to the cost of good medical care in this country over the last 25 years. If gas has risen 400% in the last 12 years alone, it was pretty much steady between 1987 to 2001, give or take 30 cents a gallon.

Since in his recent visit there was no surgery, no physical therapy, no drugs and nothing more than a bed to stay in while he slept it off and 24 hour suicide watch, we'll just take the amount of days he spent in both instances. His visit in 1987 was for 3 or so months, so will call it 90 days. His recent visit was 10 days. $70,000 X 9 is $630,000 days.

Based solely off of days spent in the hospital, this is an increase of $530,000 from his 1987 stay. (Or 530%)

To put that in perspective, they tell us that our national inflation increase for all goods and services is 4%. If you took 100 dollars in 1987, and increased it by 4% year over year (compounding), it would be $266.58 in 2012. (Or 166.6%)

So take a minute to let that soak in......

Inflation rate of general goods and services according to the Government from 1987 to 2012: 166.6%
Inflation rate of petrol at the pump: Around 300%, varies wildly from place to place.
Inflation of medical care: 530%

Keep in mind, I came up with these figures only basing the amount of days my brother spent in the hospital in 1987. I didn't even figure all of the drugs, all of the sponge-baths necessary daily for a child in a coma, the physical/speech therapy and all of the food while he was awake and the neuro-surgery itself. I'm willing to bet if i were to find statistics for what that all would cost in 2012 it would be well into the 10's of millions if not breaching the hundreds of millions....

Bottom line... not affordable for anybody without medical care either way....



So.... that brings us to number 2.

2. Nobody can afford proper health care without insurance. This was true even back in 1987 before these wild increases.

In my brother's most recent stay at the hospital he was at the end of his rope. No money in the bank, no job, and living in my Dad's basement. They might as well have billed him 70 million dollars because he couldn't even afford $700 let alone the $70,000 they did bill him. My Dad, being awesome with money and negotiating, got the hospital to forgive the entire bill. The hospital gets to write it off as a loss and my brother doesn't have this cross to bear the rest of his life.

Win/Win for everyone, right?

Not really. How do you suppose those medical costs got so high in the first place? How much free healthcare do we already give out to people, many of them not even citizens of this country? Somebody has to pay for that. Might as well make something like Obamacare to set some guidelines to try to keep the ship afloat instead of letting anybody do whatever they want.




So.... as I was saying before, I have become a proponent of the Obamacare plan and many of the good things it had to offer, and even taking jabs for "going to the other side" in the process.

That is... until I heard one of the HUGE talking points at a mandatory "Culture" meeting we will all have to go through by month's end. To tell you the truth, I'm not exactly sure what the overall point of this meeting is, since I've only been hearing from people who went to it. For the 5th year in a row, nobody got a raise. Somehow, this meeting is supposed to be about "rallying the troops" and upping morale in a bad economy with no raises, and somehow they think this can succeed when they tell us about how Obamacare will effect every part-time employee's hours......




This is the first I've heard about it, but according to the link below it's true.

http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/7243

According to Obamacare, "Full-Time" is any employee who works 30 weeks or more.

Time to break out the party hats, right?

Ummmmmm.... no.

I guess we've all been told that rather than the previous 39.75 hours we could have a week, we're being dropped to 26 hours a week. As before, if we exceed these hours, we will be written up for it. The only difference is, they were only trying to avoid paying us time and a half for extra hours. Now they're trying to avoid us having any chance of having an average of 30 or more hours for a period of 3 months so they don't have to offer health coverage.

I don't blame the company. There are so many people out of work that it will be easy to pick up an additional 70 people for the store to make up for the hours we've all been cut.

The problem for me is that I can pretty much live on part time wages if it's close to 40 hours a week. If I'm forced 2nd-hand by an ill-conceived footnote to a 2,500 page law that I can only work 26 hours a week at my current job, I now have to find a second part time job to supplement basic living expenses while still looking for a REAL job at the same time. Let's not forget how hard it is to try to schedule two jobs in one week, especially when the first one is already a night-shift job.


Boy.... this one really backfired, huh?

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Sunday, May 12, 2013 2:54 AM

HERO


What were you expecting? Free health care. A massive new govt program that works the way it was intended. Oh, maybe lower costs, premiums, and no impact on your take home pay.

It's like every other Obama policy. It costs too much, hurts jobs, is ineffective, and politically slanted towards minorities and unions.

H

Hero...must be right on all of this. ALL of the rest of us are wrong. Chrisisall, 2012

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Sunday, May 12, 2013 3:23 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Hero:
What were you expecting? Free health care. A massive new govt program that works the way it was intended. Oh, maybe lower costs, premiums, and no impact on your take home pay.

It's like every other Obama policy. It costs too much, hurts jobs, is ineffective, and politically slanted towards minorities and unions.

H

Hero...must be right on all of this. ALL of the rest of us are wrong. Chrisisall, 2012



And the best part, it'll take so long to fully come online and fully impact the people , that the spin doctors will use anything and everything ( read - GOP ) as the reason why things are so horrific.

" We have to pass the bill so that you can know what's in it. "



At which point, they'll be safely out of harms way in terms of criticism when the public has to swallow this massive excrement sandwich.




Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, May 12, 2013 4:16 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


At least they had the decency to put the bill before people and tell them that they wouldn't know what was in it unless they voted for it.

The Patriot Act was passed without even giving us such a satisfying hand jibber.




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Sunday, May 12, 2013 4:27 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The Patriot Act was passed without even giving us such a satisfying hand jibber.






Yeah, and so what? Because the Patriot Act was a stupid idea, means we should give ObamaCare a pass ?

I think both need to be repealed.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, May 12, 2013 5:19 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Now, ya see, as I remember the Obamacare debate, The President's original intent was to regulate doctor and hospital prices, and create, among other things, a Canadian style, single payer system. Medicare for all. Certainly to cut insurance companies out of the loop. A lot of stuff got added in in Congress, including the individual mandate. I remember when Hillary supported THAT and Obama didn't, and when it got added back in by pro-insurance business Republicans. And I remember when Obama proposed the "public option", which got cut. Remember the "Harry and Sally" commercials?

I also remember when the same insurance companies that got clobbered on Sep. 11 increased their premiums on ALL other coverages they offered, especially medical insurance, to make up for the losses.

So yeah, the system is broken. It already WAS broken then. It got half fixed, and half poison-pilled. SO it's no surprise that it got worse, or that employers are looking for ways to lock employees out of insurance coverage.

Employers pretended for far too long that they cared about the lives of their employees. They don't. They don't give a rat's ass if you, or their other workers, starve to death while working your jobs at the waged they pay. They don't care if they over-work you 'till you drop dead in your tracks. They don't care if you lose your wife and family because you work too many hours. They don't care if you work 60 or 80 hours a week, half of it unpaid or off the books, to accomplish the tasks they require you to complete.

THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR OWN COMFORT. They care about the Health Care Plan for senior executives. They care about being able to travel first class THEMSELVES. They care about the salary programs that MAKE THEM RICH. They care about THEIR memberships at the Country Clubs and Yacht clubs.

THAT'S ALL THEY'VE EVER CARED ABOUT! Socio-political pressures made them give up a little of that attitude for a LONG time. But, "GREED IS GOOD!", remember? It's been quite a while now since those pressures faded. They've given up pretending, long ago.

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Sunday, May 12, 2013 5:50 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Hey NOB...

Thanks for the serious discourse. Being a politically neutral entity, as well as a socially Liberal and fiscal Conservative, I feel that we need to really find a common ground.

I've moved up to a 50k+ a year job twice in my life from the very bottom. My first job was destroyed by a Rethuglican witch hunt that came up with nothing. My second salary of that caliber was dissolved and sent to India.

In the mean time, your 12 year old kid knows more about new tech than I do now. I used to always be on the front of it all. Today, I haven't bought a "new" pair of jeans outside of a 5 dollar pair from Goodwill.

Sure, I can actually remove a virus from a computer without restarting the whole drive/operating system. So can the "virus makers" also make you think that you're 100% safe on a rebuild but you still are being watched......

Just a tip..... You have to be REALLY negligent for an outside party to have access to your computer's camera, but it can always happen. Cover up the lens with a piece of duct-tape unless you're talking with friends.

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Sunday, May 12, 2013 6:15 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Hey NOB...

Thanks for the serious discourse. Being a politically neutral entity, as well as a socially Liberal and fiscal Conservative, I feel that we need to really find a common ground.

I've moved up to a 50k+ a year job twice in my life from the very bottom. My first job was destroyed by a Rethuglican witch hunt that came up with nothing. My second salary of that caliber was dissolved and sent to India.

In the mean time, your 12 year old kid knows more about new tech than I do now. I used to always be on the front of it all. Today, I haven't bought a "new" pair of jeans outside of a 5 dollar pair from Goodwill.

Sure, I can actually remove a virus from a computer without restarting the whole drive/operating system. So can the "virus makers" also make you think that you're 100% safe on a rebuild but you still are being watched......

Just a tip..... You have to be REALLY negligent for an outside party to have access to your computer's camera, but it can always happen. Cover up the lens with a piece of duct-tape unless you're talking with friends.



You're quite welcome.

Not exactly sure what the last 2 1/2 or 3 paragraphs have to do with the subject, but I share a lot of common ground with you, technology-wise.

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Thursday, May 16, 2013 4:42 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I'm not sure why the lack of replies to this post, whether they be the long winded setup for it or the replies after the fact, but this thread shouldn't fall by the wayside without some real discussion.

This is something that effects all of us, even if it only effects the bottom-rung the most.




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Saturday, May 18, 2013 3:38 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Seriously....?

No new replies to this issue still?

I guess I'll just say I told you so when it happens and everyone starts bitching about how they got f--d and didn't see it coming.

Either that, or I'm the only part-time/minimum-wage worker who posts on these boards.

Any way you look at it, I lose....


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Saturday, May 18, 2013 4:39 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Seriously....?

No new replies to this issue still?

I guess I'll just say I told you so when it happens and everyone starts bitching about how they got f--d and didn't see it coming.

Either that, or I'm the only part-time/minimum-wage worker who posts on these boards.

Any way you look at it, I lose....



Hey, I tried...
But I'm a thread killer. Can't tell ya how many threads I've replied to, and that was the end of 'em... Either I'm a "last-word" freak; or I'm such a Captain Obvious that I bore everybody to death on a topic; or else I'm so always RIGHT everybody bows to my intellectual superiority.. ( Nah, can't be that last one.)

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 5:06 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


I can't offer much to this discussion, but I've found interesting what's been shared.

6ix, this thread would've got more attention with a more descriptive thread title. "A personal perspective on Obamacare", or something.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 5:42 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


6IX, I feel for you, I really do. Daughter has the same issue as your brother, except it happened at birth. And the pisser is, if the HMO had chosen to do a C-section for this (very large) baby undergoing (very long) labor, daughter would not have had to face a lifetime of disability.

FWIW, we tried filing a birth injury complaint against the HMO, but the deck is truly stacked:

1) The contract allows only for binding arbitration, not jury trial
2) The amount one can receive is limited by state law to a top dollar amount of $250,000. (Yeah, THAT'LL cover a lifetime of medical care!)
3) Although several doctors described to me exactly what happened, only one doctor would have testified in our favor... and he passed away a month before the hearing.
4) Arbitrators must be mutually acceptable to both parties. However, an arbitrator who consistently finds against the HMO Will find themselves slowly frozen out of business, so the pool of available arbitrators is already biased.

BUT, ENOUGH ABOUT US! I agree with NOBC on this:

Quote:

Employers pretended for far too long that they cared about the lives of their employees. They don't. They don't give a rat's ass if you, or their other workers, starve to death while working your jobs at the waged they pay. They don't care if they over-work you 'till you drop dead in your tracks. They don't care if you lose your wife and family because you work too many hours. They don't care if you work 60 or 80 hours a week, half of it unpaid or off the books, to accomplish the tasks they require you to complete.

THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR OWN COMFORT. They care about the Health Care Plan for senior executives. They care about being able to travel first class THEMSELVES. They care about the salary programs that MAKE THEM RICH. They care about THEIR memberships at the Country Clubs and Yacht clubs.

THAT'S ALL THEY'VE EVER CARED ABOUT! Socio-political pressures made them give up a little of that attitude for a LONG time. But, "GREED IS GOOD!", remember? It's been quite a while now since those pressures faded. They've given up pretending, long ago.



However, I disagree about this:
Quote:

The President's original intent was to regulate doctor and hospital prices, and create, among other things, a Canadian style, single payer system. Medicare for all. Certainly to cut insurance companies out of the loop.
I ALSO remember the debate, very very clearly, as medical care for our daughter is an over-riding concern for her future.

OBAMA took single payer off the table. He did that during negotiations and he said so. Just google Obama takes single payer off table... too many sites to link, but here is the top one
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/03/12/707486/-Baucus-Obama-160-Sing
le-Payer-is-Off-the-Table


Obama assigned Max Baucus as the Senator to draft the bill. Baucus was bought-and-paid-for by the health care industry. There were a CRAP-LOAD of secret meetings associated with this bill, which excluded representation of any real working people.

The second line of defense was the "public option", ALSO favored by a majority of people. Obama promised that in his State of the Union in 2009 (?) .... in one line, way down in the bottom of the speech. I know because I was listening specifically for that, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he and his administration immediately started backtracking.
Sebelius: Public Health Care Option "Not The Essential Element"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/16/sebelius-public-health-ca_n_2
60511.html

Obama got the health care reform that he wanted, and he didn't even have to get his hands dirty to do it, he just punted it to Baucus and Lieberman.

Oh, and by the way NOBC- I knew Obama was a company man with his first important appointment in the first week of his Presidency: Tim Geithner, Wall Street insider and bag-man. Obama SHOULD have appointed Shiela Bair, Chair of the FDIC. If anyone knew how to make banks run right, is was she. I heard about that appointment and I thought OH CRAP. I decided two years later, when Obama floated the idea of indefinite preventive detention that he would not get my vote, and have been working hard ever since to get assholes like him out of office. Give up on the Democratic Party, willya? They're not on your side.

6IX, we've been done in by a bought-and-paid-for Congress. The banks got shoveled trillions. There are only a few Congresspeople of either party who represent you or me. Suport them, ditch the rest. WHen it comes to voting, Green is the best third party IMHO (the rest are either flakes, or they'll stab you in the back too)

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 5:48 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Oh, two more things

NOBC- Obama hasn't met a free trade agreement that he doesn't like. Whose side do you think he's on, really???

6IX: The minimum wage needs to be increased, and indexed to inflation. GO find a political group or party that you can work with, and get it done. You got fire in your belly, son. You're justifically angry. Don't drown it with beer, use it.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 6:13 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:


However, I disagree about this:
Quote:

The President's original intent was to regulate doctor and hospital prices, and create, among other things, a Canadian style, single payer system. Medicare for all. Certainly to cut insurance companies out of the loop.
I ALSO remember the debate, very very clearly, as medical care for our daughter is an over-riding concern for her future.

OBAMA took single payer off the table. He did that during negotiations and he said so. Just google Obama takes single payer off table... too many sites to link, but here is the top one
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/03/12/707486/-Baucus-Obama-160-Sing
le-Payer-is-Off-the-Table


Obama assigned Max Baucus as the Senator to draft the bill. Baucus was bought-and-paid-for by the health care industry. There were a CRAP-LOAD of secret meetings associated with this bill, which excluded representation of any real working people.

The second line of defense was the "public option", ALSO favored by a majority of people. Obama promised that in his State of the Union in 2009 (?) .... in one line, way down in the bottom of the speech. I know because I was listening specifically for that, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he and his administration immediately started backtracking.
Sebelius: Public Health Care Option "Not The Essential Element"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/16/sebelius-public-health-ca_n_2
60511.html

Obama got the health care reform that he wanted, and he didn't even have to get his hands dirty to do it, he just punted it to Baucus and Lieberman.



I accept your corrections. I remembered it one way. You obviously paid much more attention to the details than I did.

Quote:


Oh, and by the way NOBC- I knew Obama was a company man with his first important appointment in the first week of his Presidency: Tim Geithner, Wall Street insider and bag-man. Obama SHOULD have appointed Shiela Bair, Chair of the FDIC. If anyone knew how to make banks run right, is was she. I heard about that appointment and I thought OH CRAP. I decided two years later, when Obama floated the idea of indefinite preventive detention that he would not get my vote, and have been working hard ever since to get assholes like him out of office. Give up on the Democratic Party, willya? They're not on your side.


I accept your opinion on Geithner-- I agree.

But as to the Democrats- they may not be on my side. Obama hasn't done much for me. But the Republicans SURE AREN'T. Whose side should I be on? Or should I become an anarchist, move to Montana, live in a log cabin Unibomber-style ? (on whose land? and where do I get the cash to buy and build?) Which Third (Loser- not their personality, their fate.) Party do I join? Or do I just not bother with politics? Not vote, not follow the issues?
Quote:


6IX, we've been done in by a bought-and-paid-for Congress. The banks got shoveled trillions. There are only a few Congresspeople of either party who represent you or me. Suport them, ditch the rest. WHen it comes to voting, Green is the best third party IMHO (the rest are either flakes, or they'll stab you in the back too)


OK, maybe you answered one of those questions. But it will take years, maybe a lifetime, before even the Greens have enough support to elect candidates. Unless one of the Big Two totally implodes. And even if they're DYING, RIGHT NOW, they'll still cling to power for a long time.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 6:20 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, two more things

NOBC- Obama hasn't met a free trade agreement that he doesn't like. Whose side do you think he's on, really???

6IX: The minimum wage needs to be increased, and indexed to inflation. GO find a political group or party that you can work with, and get it done. You got fire in your belly, son. You're justifically angry. Don't drown it with beer, use it.



You do make a pretty fair case that Obama's bought and paid for. Why is the Republican establishment fighting him so hard then? They're already in the same pocket, willingly. They sold out LONG AGO. ( E-T-A: Why don't their puppet masters just tell them to back off and shut up? ) Or is this just an intramural power struggle between the Republicans and the "Democrat"-Republicans? Or is it all just a side show to distract the unimportant citizenry?

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 6:30 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


NOBC- Even the 1% aren't unified in their approach. Obama is bought and paid for by one set ot the 1%, the Republicans are bought and paid for by another set.

The split between the two sets: One group sees that the economy is going into the ditch (Warren Buffet, like the original Henry Ford), and will therefore appeal to the government for a bit of Keynesianism (which seems to morphing into fascism). The other set- the Koch brothers- for example, think they can survive and thrive without a government, and are doing everything they can to kill it. They can't, of course. But don't expect rational thinking from the upper crust- they really are (for the most part) irrational- just like everybody else who is going along with the plan. They are hanging themselves, and everybody else with them.


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Monday, May 20, 2013 4:05 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by kpo:
I can't offer much to this discussion, but I've found interesting what's been shared.

6ix, this thread would've got more attention with a more descriptive thread title. "A personal perspective on Obamacare", or something.



Good point kpo. I'll keep that in mind.

Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
6IX, I feel for you, I really do. Daughter has the same issue as your brother, except it happened at birth. And the pisser is, if the HMO had chosen to do a C-section for this (very large) baby undergoing (very long) labor, daughter would not have had to face a lifetime of disability.

FWIW, we tried filing a birth injury complaint against the HMO, but the deck is truly stacked:

1) The contract allows only for binding arbitration, not jury trial
2) The amount one can receive is limited by state law to a top dollar amount of $250,000. (Yeah, THAT'LL cover a lifetime of medical care!)
3) Although several doctors described to me exactly what happened, only one doctor would have testified in our favor... and he passed away a month before the hearing.
4) Arbitrators must be mutually acceptable to both parties. However, an arbitrator who consistently finds against the HMO Will find themselves slowly frozen out of business, so the pool of available arbitrators is already biased.

BUT, ENOUGH ABOUT US! I agree with NOBC on this:

Quote:

Employers pretended for far too long that they cared about the lives of their employees. They don't. They don't give a rat's ass if you, or their other workers, starve to death while working your jobs at the waged they pay. They don't care if they over-work you 'till you drop dead in your tracks. They don't care if you lose your wife and family because you work too many hours. They don't care if you work 60 or 80 hours a week, half of it unpaid or off the books, to accomplish the tasks they require you to complete.

THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR OWN COMFORT. They care about the Health Care Plan for senior executives. They care about being able to travel first class THEMSELVES. They care about the salary programs that MAKE THEM RICH. They care about THEIR memberships at the Country Clubs and Yacht clubs.

THAT'S ALL THEY'VE EVER CARED ABOUT! Socio-political pressures made them give up a little of that attitude for a LONG time. But, "GREED IS GOOD!", remember? It's been quite a while now since those pressures faded. They've given up pretending, long ago.



However, I disagree about this:
Quote:

The President's original intent was to regulate doctor and hospital prices, and create, among other things, a Canadian style, single payer system. Medicare for all. Certainly to cut insurance companies out of the loop.
I ALSO remember the debate, very very clearly, as medical care for our daughter is an over-riding concern for her future.

OBAMA took single payer off the table. He did that during negotiations and he said so. Just google Obama takes single payer off table... too many sites to link, but here is the top one
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/03/12/707486/-Baucus-Obama-160-Sing
le-Payer-is-Off-the-Table


Obama assigned Max Baucus as the Senator to draft the bill. Baucus was bought-and-paid-for by the health care industry. There were a CRAP-LOAD of secret meetings associated with this bill, which excluded representation of any real working people.

The second line of defense was the "public option", ALSO favored by a majority of people. Obama promised that in his State of the Union in 2009 (?) .... in one line, way down in the bottom of the speech. I know because I was listening specifically for that, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he and his administration immediately started backtracking.
Sebelius: Public Health Care Option "Not The Essential Element"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/16/sebelius-public-health-ca_n_2
60511.html

Obama got the health care reform that he wanted, and he didn't even have to get his hands dirty to do it, he just punted it to Baucus and Lieberman.

Oh, and by the way NOBC- I knew Obama was a company man with his first important appointment in the first week of his Presidency: Tim Geithner, Wall Street insider and bag-man. Obama SHOULD have appointed Shiela Bair, Chair of the FDIC. If anyone knew how to make banks run right, is was she. I heard about that appointment and I thought OH CRAP. I decided two years later, when Obama floated the idea of indefinite preventive detention that he would not get my vote, and have been working hard ever since to get assholes like him out of office. Give up on the Democratic Party, willya? They're not on your side.

6IX, we've been done in by a bought-and-paid-for Congress. The banks got shoveled trillions. There are only a few Congresspeople of either party who represent you or me. Suport them, ditch the rest. WHen it comes to voting, Green is the best third party IMHO (the rest are either flakes, or they'll stab you in the back too)



Sorry to hear about your daughter Signy. I know it must be insanely tough to handle. Of that $250,000 I assume was awarded, how much were you able to put towards health insurance for her? (None, I'm assuming because of pre-existing conditions). $250k doesn't do crap for medical expenses, but it would sure buy a lot of health insurance if you were so allowed.

As much as I disagree with the banks being shoveled trillions of dollars, it was really only to make up for the LAWS the congress forced on the banks through Clinton's and GWB's terms to basically give everyone a loan even if they couldn't afford it.

I'm certain the original intent of this thought process was to eliminate discrimination of races, but it seriously got out of hand and there was no governmental oversight.

Back in 2002, I had been unemployed for over a year. I had access to roughly 250k worth of credit on my 22 credit cards that were open. Most of them ranged from 6.99% to 10.99%. Seriously???? You're going to give a 21 year old kid 250k of credit and still give weekly offers for 0% intrest and 0 transfer fees on a new card when he hasn't had a job for over a year?

Fortunately for me, I treated credit as it should be, money you don't have, and I didn't bury myself under it.

Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
6IX: The minimum wage needs to be increased, and indexed to inflation. GO find a political group or party that you can work with, and get it done. You got fire in your belly, son. You're justifically angry. Don't drown it with beer, use it.



On paper, this sounds good as well, but I can just see the nightmares that arise if the bill isn't written properly.

Where I work, minimum wage is 7.25. I work night shift, and I get an extra .75 an hour differential. I've already been told that if the minimum wage goes to 9.00 an hour, that I will not make 9.75 an hour. I will be making 9.00 an hour, just like everyone else. I work with a woman who currently makes 8.72 an hour. She's been with the company for 13 years (many of those years she did get increases). Still... after 13 years, she's only making .72 cents an hour more than I do after minimum wage hikes happened and her salary didn't get bumped.



I hate to argue with you about a minimum wage hike bound to inflation because deep down it's something I would love to see. Unfortunately, anyone not making minimum wage not only doesn't get helped by it when they don't see a bump in their own pay, but they get hurt by it when the price of goods goes up everywhere to pay for it.

I wish I had a solution to propose here. I'm honestly lost.




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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 3:52 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I'm not shocked at all this is being ignored here.

Nobody has a good idea about how to fix it.

Further, it's a topic that the "righties" and "lefties" don't feel comfortable beating each other over the head with.

Please....

Somebody must have some ideas......


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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 10:48 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


It's hard to have a decent health care system when a great proportion believes that public health is 'something that can never work'. I had this conversation many times years ago with Americans, despite that fact that every other western nation has a public health system. Obviously some better than others. It surprised me to realise that other models were not even considered when the whole issue was being debated. Such is the problem with American exceptionalism.

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Thursday, May 23, 2013 5:13 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
It's hard to have a decent health care system when a great proportion believes that public health is 'something that can never work'. I had this conversation many times years ago with Americans, despite that fact that every other western nation has a public health system. Obviously some better than others. It surprised me to realise that other models were not even considered when the whole issue was being debated. Such is the problem with American exceptionalism.



Classic argument, right up there with, "We're the richest nation in the world. Why can't we have better medical care for the poorer among us?" Maybe because those not-as-rich nations feel the need, and those in power here don't.

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