In CA, all drivers must be both licensed and protected with automobile insurance: it's the law. However, I pay a monthly fee, called "uninsured motorist" coverage, to protect me from motorists who are not insured. Thus, in spite of the law, MY insurance has to pay for HIS/HER failure to comply with the law. If neither party is insured, the public pays for the costs of whatever may befall the unlicensed driver and/or the uninsured motorist, including medical costs, property damage, and funerals.
Rather than taking a step forward, we have nailed one foot to the ground and will continue to go around and around and around, giving the illusion of making progress, but staying in the same place we've always been. The people aren't going to continue to pay for their own medical coverage -- and pick up the tab for those who refuse to purchase medical insurance. The medical institutions aren't going to continue to operate if they have to continue to provide services for those patients who do not have insurance. The doctors aren't going to continue to see patients who refuse to purchase insurance when the law clearly states that every American will have medical insurance. Who's going to defend the doctors, the medical facilities, and the insurance companies when the lawsuits clog the courts because medical services are denied to individuals who do not have insurance?
A person who does not have a valid driver's license still drives, and a person who does not have automobile insurance still drives an uninsured vehicle, so why does anyone believe for even a moment that everyone will purchase medical insurance because it's the law?
Success is not determined so much by the position one has reached in life, but more so by the obstacles one has overcome while attempting to succeed. --Unknown
Vegetation
What happens when one forgets the basket of onions one left on top of the 'fridge
Soaring above the competition is all in how you see it.
"... there are great perils in rising too quickly in any organization. Hawks may soar, but chipmunks don't get sucked into jet engines."
--Joseph Finder, Paranoia, p.183
--Joseph Finder, Paranoia, p.183
Metal Sculpture
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Ignorance is so not Bliss
As Issac Asimov said, "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States ... nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'." (Jan. 21, 1980).
Ranger
Our little guy grows up
Another perspective
If you think you're a leader but no one is following you, you're just taking a walk.
When Mia shares her floor cushion,
you know the dogs have bonded.
Every Day is Mother's Day
He asked, "What's your mother going to say when you tell her?"
The round black face screwed up in astonishment. "I ain' gonna tell her. That'd be fucked up. You never win no arguments 'gainst yo' mother." --Jeffery Deaver, The Broken Window (266)
The round black face screwed up in astonishment. "I ain' gonna tell her. That'd be fucked up. You never win no arguments 'gainst yo' mother." --Jeffery Deaver, The Broken Window (266)
Perspective on Self
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I'm Watching You ...
but you can't see me!
Explaining the Moment
"You know ... sometimes you do things you don't really understand. You just have to do them. Sense or no sense--it really doesn't matter much." --Scott Turow, Innocent, p 64.
Albert Einstein on teaching ...
"One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community."
Blog Archive
from The Innocent, by author Harlan Coben
"The world is neither cruel nor joyous. It is simply random, full of particles hurtling, chemicals mixing and reacting. There is no real order. There is no preordained cursing of the evil and protecting of the righteous.
Chaos, baby, It's all about chaos."
Chaos, baby, It's all about chaos."
Spotting Daisy
... casing the neighborhood from the front room window.
Confucius said ...
By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
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- Liza
- I am the person who lives inside my soul; I just have to figure out who she is and where she's been all these years.
Please, don't disturb me: I'm reading a book
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--Naomi Shihab Nye
--Naomi Shihab Nye
Primary Motivation: an unread book
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George Orwell
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One of the things I noticed in all of this was the simultaneous delicacy and brutality of the scalpel. How much people can hurt, the ways they hurt, and how sometimes they have to get hurt even more so they'll get better in the long run.
--John Sandford, Preface, Eyes of Prey
--John Sandford, Preface, Eyes of Prey
A Book Makes Any Day a Better Day
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Quotation
The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious -- because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe -- some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others--some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men.
--Atticus Finch, closing remarks to the jury, To Kill a Mockingbird
--Atticus Finch, closing remarks to the jury, To Kill a Mockingbird
2 comments:
You make a lot of valid points, and I would agree that in this one area the new bill signed into law will likely fail.
However, in many areas this law will be greatly beneficial. For example, if I came back to America and got a job, without this new law I would be denied insurance by any reputable insurance company. The law addresses that and makes it illegal for my employer's (or a third party) insurance company from denying me coverage simply because I have pre-existing conditions.
I've also had friends who were denied coverage during procedures and had their coverage dropped the moment procedures were done by insurance companies. That is now illegal to do-- you pay for insurance for most of your life and don't need it, then when you do need it, they drop you because you become too expensive. Well, no longer. That is a huge positive to those who get AIDS, HIV, cancer, have strokes/heart attacks, etc., or any other "expensive" treatments.
Lastly, you think you have really good coverage and don't read the fine print, which says you have a one million or five million dollar lifetime cap. Then you get cancer. One series of treatments and operations can wipe out your insurance maximum easily (these are expensive treatments and doctor's appointments) and the insurance company can drop you as you have reached your lifetime cap at, say, age 40. And then, because you have an existing (even if in remission) condition, no other insurer will take you on... so you have to live the remaining 20-40 years of your life without insurance and hoping to hell the cancer doesn't come back. That is now illegal for insurance companies to do.
Sort of like COBRA or the increases to children's medical coverages, which the Republicans passed against much public and Democrat opposition but turned out to be a huge boon to society and things that most people can't live without today (I know I used COBRA twice to keep my insurance coverage active so I didn't lose coverage during transitions between jobs/locations), this bill is not perfect and will need tweaking over the next years as loopholes are found and exploits are discovered. But people like me will benefit a great deal from it initially and many will be thankful when their insurance company is not allowed to drop them in the future.
And I, too, have already benefited from COBRA, even though it has been very costly to do so.
So, yes, I see the advantages to change that you have clearly outlined as beneficial to every potentially ill individual, and I agree that these changes are necessary and too long coming.
But what about the chronic scofflaw, the person who simply ignores the law? Is that person going to continue to bring down the entire system when medical facilities and personnel are stressed to the max with the new patient loads ... and the uninsured are still flooding the ERs?
Is there going to be a process for denying service for a person who breaks the law and has no insurance? Hell, no: not when a person's health or life are on the line! Knowing that to be a fact has led us to the point we already occupy: the current "health system" cannot care for the volume of patients needing care because the bottom layer of the system, the uninsured, is bleeding it dry.
*husto: an expression of frustration taking the place of "shit."
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