Health Insurance, Big Pharm and the FDA

LadyG, the OP, re: "Proof that the USA controls Americans way too much and the FDA plays into the hands of BIG PHARM: I just had a chat with soeone who went to the UK on a trip and she got sick. No biggie there. The thing that got my attention is that she went to a store and they sold Antibiotics OVER THE COUNTER! She did NOT need a prescription for them at all. Again, another reason I will NOT get Health Insurance and play that vicious mass control game!"

I agree with everything you just said, and ironically enough, I became disabled and eligible for Medicare in 1993, just as private health insurance in the USA was beginning to fail. If this hadn't happened and I'd continued working, I have no idea what I would have done between then and my 65th birthday if I had run up major medical bills, but my guess is that I would have ended up broke and applying for disability benefits at that point.

Since I came back on line in 2005, I've had close virtual contact with lots of people who live in the UK, the EU, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand ... all of which have government-financed medical care of one kind of another ... and none of these individuals have expressed any serious complaints about either the treatment they've received or the money they've had to pay out of pocket for care and medications that weren't covered.

However, the link at the end of your message leads to a right-wing propaganda site that not only strongly opposes "Obamacare" but all forms of what they call "socialized medicine", which includes the systems in place in all the countries I mentioned above.

Well, then you can call eme a right wing strongly opposed OBAMACARE person.  I signed the petition, YES I DID!

I don't have Health Insurance and will not get it.  Last year I was told that I had to by the person who was doing our taxes.  If that happens again this year, I will give them a peice of my mind and everyone else there too.

It is a SCAM!!!!!!!

Doctors have an idea that could save a ton of money: No more drug ads.

‘Your doctor may be killing you.’ May? MAY? Look at the figures

 

Lady Guinevere wrote:

Well, then you can call eme a right wing strongly opposed OBAMACARE person.  I signed the petition, YES I DID!

I don't have Health Insurance and will not get it.  Last year I was told that I had to by the person who was doing our taxes.  If that happens again this year, I will give them a peice of my mind and everyone else there too.

It is a SCAM!!!!!!!

Nah, I learned long ago that it's really foolish to make simplistic value judgments about people's viewpoints on politics, religion, or the like. The reality is that even though I voted for Obama twice and will undoubtedly vote for whoever the Democrats nominate for President in 2016, my actual opinions on political and economic matters transcend the usual left-right dichotomy, and I agree with almost everything you've posted in this thread so far. I think of myself as a "militant moderate" who believes that peace has to be waged as actively as war, and that checks and balances on all forms of political and economic power should trump everything else. So I feel that the policies of the mainstream of the Democratic Party over the last few decades are actually moderate regardless of how loudly the
Republicans yell that they are "socialistic", and the agenda of the so-called "conservatives" in the USA right now represents a long step towards political tyranny and economic plutocracy. And more important, I don't believe that government can or should control this culture's natural evolution on the level of social and spiritual issues. There is a cultural and spiritual revolution going on, generated from the bottom up by individual adjustments to modern technology, and attempts to control it from the top down are always going to do more harm than good.

I have not had health insurance for years, and I mean over 20 years.  I get the fear tactics of what if's.  So what if....I have had two hernia surgeries, 3 DVT's all woithout insurance.  I had to go in for some female organ work and I still did not have inurance.  I pay my own (well my husband) my own medical bills that are put on a sliding scale or a montly payment schedule.  They do not tell you that you have this choice.  You also get some sort of deductible and they will show you how much more that you pay when you have insurance as to what the real price of that procedure is.  They don't tell you that unless you ask.
I get sick about once a year with some bronchitis or other upper respiratory thing.  I go to the clinic in town and they fix me up with a heavy duty cough suppressant because when I get that I cough up my food becasue of the muscle spasms.  I don't get sick enough to pay for the deductible or the monthly premiums.
Now my husband is supposed to have (and so am I) colonoscopies.  I don't and I choose not to get those.  I do have Ulcerative Colitis too, but *I* know how to keep it in remission and what to do when it comes around.  I don't need no doctor to tell me that.
Anyway my husband has a large deductible on his Health Insurance Plan of $1,500.  The PREVENTATIVE procedure is more than that, so with all his health insurance we still cannot afford the basics because all the money is going to the Health Insurance Company.

Do the math:  Deductible: $1,500.00
Preminum about $80.00 per month
Doctor Bill just to see them:  $75.00
You have to go see a doctor in the USA to get a prescrip for your drugs.  Insurance pays only 80%
When you see a doctor they will tell you that there is something wrong with you and put you on drugs....have t go back to get more......have to pay more to keep going back.......

In my OP I did not complain about the UK, but I have heard and know of some that do complain.  They have a waiting list and the doctor's over there will only do so much for those with Alzheimers.  I have a friend who lives there and has a facial muscle disease which contorts his facial muscles and he has to wear a mask at night....it took them a while to get him seen over there.
What you failed to miss was that they can get their antibiotcs OTV without ever having to go to a Doctor to get a prescription.  We cannot.

I have a friend that lives near me that was on all kinds of drugs for heart and all kinds of other problems as the Doctors told him.  12 weeks ago he stopping taking all those drugs and has been drug-free ever since and that includes OTC pain relief.  He says that he feels so much better.

I was on Coumadin for many years becasue of my DVT's and I took myself off of them.....18 years ago.  I went to the Doctor when I had my hervia and the first thing that he did was tell me that I HAD to be on Coumadin for the rest of my life....that was 10 years AFTER I took myself off of that RAT POISON.  I did research on that and found that there are two tthings that naturally thin the blood and gave the research to the doctor.  I wathced him throw all that research in the trash as I left the office.  Now do your own research into the conditions that you have and learn about your own body.  Your body was given to you....not to the Doctors.
Since I took myself off of the coumadin I have not had a DVT since.  While I was on the Coumadin is when I had the two other Blood clots AND the last time I was bleeding internally amd ended up getting 2 units of blood on my birthday.  They tried to blam it on me, but I did exactly what they told me to do.

This governement and OBAMA does not give us a choice in pur own healthcare.  I do not need it, can't afford it and don't want it.  Don't tell me what I have to do with my own body.
I did not vote for OBAMA at any time and will not vote for him.  I am not demo, nor am I repub and I am not Liberal.....I am a Human Being with a body that was given to me to take care of......not someone else and not no governement.

Socialised medicine makes all of this so much easier.

I understand this POV as I used to have it... after I arrived in the US at the age of 24, I had to escape again - this time because life in that existence in the poor neighborhood of a Southern town plagued with radiation problems became unbearable. We chose not to have a health insurance - and we could not afford one for years.
I don't know what caused a turnaround in me and my wife (I should ask her what she thinks now) but one thing was that our child was born. Perhaps our growing contacts with Americans of all sort who lived on the edge and they mostly figured out right-wing brainwashing.

We still thought life was individually different but we could see how others needed some amount of care. My relatives now in the US say that Obamacare is problematic to use but it is still better than nothing. My elder daughter lives there and she does have some chronic problems and part of the medication is covered - uncovered, the same would cost her over a thousand dollars per month... well they have starting level jobs but this would bankrupt the family or she would have to return to live over here where she has no future... plus the local healthcare system is falling apart due to private greed. Go figure.

Well, I totally agree with what BSSM posted above ... and she's a doctor herself who resides in New Zealand, which means she lives under and works for a "socialized medicine" establishment. And I'd also like to point out that most countries that have a government-financed health care system also allow doctors to have private practices and give care to those who want to pay for it out of pocket or have private health insurance. And this private system usually allows standard Western medicine to intergrade to a certain extent with various forms of "alternative medicine".

And I'd very much like to hear from people who live in various countries how the financing of health care is handled there. It looks to me like the system here in the USA is harder to live under than is the case in just about all of the other "advanced" nations.

Realityrebel wrote:

Well, I totally agree with what BSSM posted above ... and she's a doctor herself who resides in New Zealand, which means she lives under and works for a "socialized medicine" establishment. And I'd also like to point out that most countries that have a government-financed health care system also allow doctors to have private practices and give care to those who want to pay for it out of pocket or have private health insurance. And this private system usually allows standard Western medicine to intergrade to a certain extent with various forms of "alternative medicine".

And I'd very much like to hear from people who live in various countries how the financing of health care is handled there. It looks to me like the system here in the USA is harder to live under than is the case in just about all of the other "advanced" nations.

 Other advanced nations?  LOL.
All I am saying with all this health care is that not everyone needs it and we should not be forced to have it.  Alternative medicine is still not covered by out healthcare Insurance.  Some is, but not a lot of it.  How I heard it from the Mother of the friend that lives in the UK, it is already put in their taxes.  Tehre is no added deductibles or any other expense.  There is a waiting list ghouth and that may take up to two years to get seen for medical services.  I am not sure how it works with everyday things such as colds or the flu and such as that.  By watching the shows about ER's in the UK they seem to have it together more than the USA does...or so it seems.

Some of those subsidies that were working under the OBAMACARE has left that system, leaving the more prominent (bigger financed) ones to take up the slack....meaning there will be higher rates to pay.

I'm not sure if the waiting lists are that long in the UK, but in Australia, if you're not insured you can see a GP out of pocket. We have a system called 'bulk billing'

When it comes to surgery, there may be a longer waiting time than for privately insured patients. Although, if it is urgent surgery; the most urgent cases are dealt with first. There is a triage system - a knee replacement or less serious orthopedic will be pushed further down the line than emergency surgery. For example, if you do not have insurance and you need an emergency appendectomy, you will be operated on that day. And the cost? Not one thin dime. Even if you were to pay out of pocket for surgery in Australia, the costs are nowhere near the price of hospitalisation in the United States.

BSSM wrote:

I'm not sure if the waiting lists are that long in the UK, but in Australia, if you're not insured you can see a GP out of pocket. We have a system called 'bulk billing'

When it comes to surgery, there may be a longer waiting time than for privately insured patients. Although, if it is urgent surgery; the most urgent cases are dealt with first. There is a triage system - a knee replacement or less serious orthopedic will be pushed further down the line than emergency surgery. For example, if you do not have insurance and you need an emergency appendectomy, you will be operated on that day. And the cost? Not one thin dime.  Even if you were to pay out of pocket for surgery in Australia, the costs are nowhere near the price of hospitalisation in the United States.

That sounds like a great system you have there.  I pay out of my pocket for my things and they are less then I would pay for the deductables and per month for Health Insurance.  Last year I had a rather large cyst on the inside of my leg.  The whole hing cost $500.00 and most of it was to send the pus off to a lab.  They really didn't have to do that but by law, I guess, the did that.  I alread told them how I got the cysts.  Boy was that painful.  That was the only thing that I paid for the entire year.
Those $1,500.00 Deductable are every year, not accrued and the monthly premiums are also per year, meaning they are not accrued either.

In practice it does not. Corrupt systems do, whether private or state-operated.

regmelocco wrote:

In practice it does not. Corrupt systems do, whether private or state-operated.

It looks to me like the private health care financing system in the USA is quite corrupt, the private health care provision system is slightly corrupt, and the public health care provision system (Medicare and Medicaid) is hardly corrupt at all. The private system for providing medications is also quite corrupt, and for all practical purposes, there is no public system for providing medications. Public financing of the purchase of medications depends entirely on purchasing them from the private providers.

Lady Guinevere wrote:

‘Your doctor may be killing you.’ May? MAY? Look at the figures

 

‘In a virtually unheard of move, a medical professional has come forward with a personal story filled with regret and industry shame. She even goes so far as to say that modern medicine “doesn’t train doctors to see patients as individuals” and that “patients are no longer treated as a whole person, but individual body parts.”

Those are the words of Dr. Erika Schwartz, founder of Evolved Science, a boutique personalized medicine group headquartered in New York City. Schwartz, who specializes in anti-aging, hormone balancing and disease prevention is also the author of Don’t Let Your Doctor Kill You: How to Beat Physician Arrogance, Corporate Greed and a Broken System, and is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail.’

Read more: Your doctor may be killing you: http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/your-doctor-may-be-killing-you/

Lady Guinevere......
I am almost certain that you will enjoy an article by
Dr. Leo Rebello......

http://www.healthwisdom.org/aidsminera.htm
AIDS THE TRACE MINERALS FAMINE IMMUNE WEAKNESS
COMPILED AND EDITED BY DR. LEO REBELLO