Joe, what have you been eating? Why on earth would North Korea want to attack anyone? It's got to be one of the most isolated countries on the globe. Apart from their monthly skirmishes with South Korea (and the occasional kidnapping of Japanese citizens), they don't get out much.

heck thats why they do what they do, because they don't want anyone to forget they exist

If population had really something to do with it, then there would be a lot more countries ranked before the US.

Paxx, I think that you need to look into how healthcare works in the US, as you obviously don't have all the facts. As I said, there are a lot of basically free healthcares out there (on top of Medicare and Medicaid), you just have to take the time to enroll in them. It's a "help yourself" type thing. There are also many free clinics (I donate to a free Womens clinic every year), but the person has to look for them. You will also not lose your house because you have a $100,000 medical bill. We have laws that protect people. The law is- as long as you make monthly payments (even if they are only $10) then the medical facility has to accept it as terms. (If this was not the case, my next door neighbor who has racked up over $2 million in medical bills due to a bad liver wouldn't have a home right now) If you don't pay at all, that is when you get in trouble. There are also many organizations that help people like that. But again, you have to put the effort forward and help yourself.

I'm making a very hard effor to stay out of any talks about the US, or especially, US healthcare, but... I just need to fill in the blanks on a few spots. It's nothing personal KG!

"(on top of Medicare and Medicaid), you just have to take the time to enroll in them. It's a "help yourself" type thing."

... which turns down a very large majority of the applications for aid that it gets. These were created to help only two groups: The dirt poor and the elderly - and the coverage the dirt poor gets (from experience,) is also crappy in itself and not worth it unless you have small children. They absolutely refuse to assist the social group in the US which needs the most assistance with healthcare at the moment: The upper-lower class and the lower-middle class - the area of the population which is too 'rich' to qualify for governmet help and can't afford any of the so-called 'affordable' plans at their work - /IF/ such a plan is even offered.

"There are also many free clinics (I donate to a free Womens clinic every year), but the person has to look for them."

... where they exist. They aren't always available everywhere. Move out of the cities, and your chances of finding a clinic diminish dramatically (in my life's experience, they've always been clustered in the cities after all - go figure.) In fact, in some areas, geographically, it's like pulling teeth to even find them - and, sadly (I think free clinics are wonderful things, yes.) they have a habit of disappearing on you as well (its not the clinic's fault, mind you, they're expensive beasts to run after all.)

The sad fact is, a very /large/ portion of the US population has no access to healthcare that they either a) are poor enough for or are rich enough poor.

Gads - you're all smart enough to read my horrible typing contextually... but, just in case:

are rich enough /FOR/.... not 'poor'. Gads. Coffee, here I come!

Roughly 10% of the population of the US does not have healthcare. Out of that 10%, nearly half of which are young adults who choose not to get healthcare but could afford it.

So you're talking about 5% of the US population that wants healthcare but can't really afford it. Hardly a "large portion".

kthxbye, no offense, but you only talked about Medicaid and Medicare. I was referring to the low cost health plans that were available on top of them. I don't know what state you live in, but Michigan has one that fills in the gaps. Yes, it is mainly for Children, but it is only $5 per month. There are other ones, too, that are offered by private institutions, but you have to look for them. Even when I was living in Metro Detroit, before I started at Stardock, I still found healthcare on my own that was affordable. I was making less than $17,000 a year (and the cost of living is very high here) and totally supported myself. It is out there, you just have to take the time to find it.

This is where statistics prove that once again, they don't really mean much of anything, however.

Augh - I did have some numbers I was going to give - so Frogboy doesn't claim I'm one of those liberals (heh,) just spouting stuff out (Sorry, I had to say it! ^_~) but my roommate has just informed me that I'm driving her to the bank.

Blah.

Anyway - as of the 2001 census - the percentage of people with absolutely /no/ insurance coverage was a 'modest' seeming 14.6% of the population. Yes. I'll even ignore the percentage of people in the US who don't get counted in the census - we'll say they're insignificant. That's 'only' 40-something million people.

That's a lot of people. But that's okay - it's a small percent. Sure - that means that the vast majority of the US population is covered by /something/. Until you look closer.

However 'covered' does /not/ equate to 'covered adequately' (look at many HMOs,) and it also does not mean covered /affordably/.

Ooops - being yelled at now. Grrr.

As for those health plans, KG - yeah, I've heard about one in Maine - but I've honestly never lived in a state which provides them (VA, MD, OK, and Minnesota most recently - though I never looked in Minn,) so I can not speak of them.

Or - if any of these states /do/ provide them - they don't make the people who could benefit from them know about them - and isn't that just as bad?

(Augh - being glared at - I'm really running now!)

Speaking of healthcare - my roommate's going to need it soon. Grrr.

Me: Okay, okay! I'm ready to go, come on.

Her: Oops, hold on, I need to go change clothes real quick.

AUGH!!!!!!

My father in law (American living in PA) is retired and either has no insurance or his insurance won't pay, it seems (I don't know all the details). The thing is, he needs a kidney transplant and the anti-rejections medication he will need to take cost $2,800 per month. He was telling me that he makes a tad too much money to apply for governement help, but yet he can't affort $2,800/month.
A good thing he is a vet and luckily the army or something are going to pay for it. But had he not been a prior military, he'd had been in big doodoo.

Brad, even if it was only 5% (which kthxbye seems to say is lower than reality), it still reprents a "mere" 1.1 million people. That heck of a lot of people, Brad.

The US health system idn't all that great and it is not open to everyone and funding is not equal across the board either.

This idea that the poor are fully suppported by everyone else is a fantasy. An urban myth that has run for years and been accepted without a second thought by many.

When the CEO of a non-profit is taking home more than %180,000 a year it tends to make me think that the profit is still there, just shifted to the administration and not some owner.

Something else that is rather odd about non-profit clinics is the fact that almost all of them are holding a Director or CEO who is conservative, a republican. I would think this would be a place where Liberals would tend to be more involved with.

Sitting on the board of directors for a non-profit is a feather in the social cap of many memebers sitting on these boards. Nothing more, it is seen as a means to an end.

I will admit USA free health is better than say, Nigeria or a number of other nations, almost all third world by UN standards.

caeonics: seems like a lot of US citizens know foreign policy only from Tom Clancy novels

Paxx - you touch on a totally different issue there. Is it up to other people to pay for other people's health care?

Certainly it's not a great thing when someone can't afford to get insurance. But the alternative is essentially forced charity. Is it the job of the federal government to take money from one person and hand it over to someone else who hasn't earned it?

The number of Americans without health care is less than 40 million. It's roughly 10%. Yea, that's many millions but it's far from being a large portion of the population. Especially when you consider that many of them (estimated to be roughly half) are young adults who CHOOSE not to have insurance.

People have to make a lot of touch choices in life. I grew up around many "poor" people. I was one of them. What made my mom different from most of them is that she had her priorities straight. She saved money rather than spend it on booze, junk food, cable TV, VCRs, car stereos, etc. I don't have statistics on what types of things the average person who "can't afford" insurance has but I would be willing to bet that a lot of them have managed to afford other kinds of luxuries. All the people I know who don't have health insurance, for instance, have cable modems. That may be just an anomaly but it does demonstrate that some people don't consider health care very important (at least until they need it).

Personally, I object strongly to the idea of the federal government providing health care. It is just another redistribution of wealth at a national level. I would suggest that something like that be handled by the states where the residents of the state have more control over it. Different regions have different needs.

*treading lightly here for various reasons, one being my left foot got heavy all of a sudden*

US health care sucks.
It is broken and needs to be totally revamped.
They also need to leave religion out of the equation when it comes to clinics.

Safe sex and Aids are both things a pregnant 12 year old should be hearing about,
abstinence is rather a stupid ploy to divert reality into accepting myth and mythology
as a means of birth control.

AIDs in Africa is a horror, AIDs in the USA is a choice, got to love it...
Billions for better ways to kill is a good indicator of exactly where this nation stands when it comes to social issues.

Out of sight out of mind..

I won't go into this deeper, but my WIfe has been and is on review boards for grant request proposals in Washington DC. She has been connected with the Administration of non-profit clinics for 12 years, the last 8 as either a CFO, CIO or CEO. She has now moved to the private sector and our business was formed.

Most of the problems involved with the health care system revolve around catch 22 situations. A needs because, but B gets because A did not have a certain thing filed in time, so B gets put on the happy happy list and stock piles what hey do not need, but A in fact is desperate for. B would consider giving A the stock pile, but that would be against the rules and B would face being banished to the land of Monroe County, even cockroaches pack up and move away from there. So A sweats it out in hopes that something positive will happen, B stock piles more and more ad has to expand for more storage, and the Politicians say " See, yes, our greatness, see what we provide, we have clinic B who was in dire straights in deep need of product 123 and I, yes I no one else, I made sure they got it, but look at clinic A over there, my good Friend and opponent did his best to keep costs down to prove he is not wasteful, and yet Clinic A does without barely abe to operate, if you elect me I and only I will ensure all is equal and the land shale be smiled upon by those above and sunshine will break in every yon window on the morn"

So the moral to this story is, research it and you will be shocked to find out all parties concerned spin spin spin and they all gasp in anticipation when the bottle labeled " your it" starts to spin slower and slower.

US health care? yeah it works, for some, not most...
It's broke and running on 3 cylinders and still firing on 8 plugs burning holes in tops of pistons...

give me a day and I'll tell you what I really think

When I was laid off, I lost my health care, I could have done the COBRA thing, but, with no income it was too expensive. Switched all our insurance to my wifes benefits package (duh). Her boss later decided to cut dependant coverage, so now my kids and I have nothing. This little programing contract gig I have now isn't going to pay for insurance. I am living in fear that something is going to happen and it will completely wipe us out. I've looked into the Texas Childrens Health Care program, but my wife makes too much (it's not much) to qualify. This is the case with all of the programs I've looked into which could be of benefit to our family.

exactly, catch 22

hopig things come around soonest too !

thanks...I could use a doctor atm

i've lived in America over half a century, have sometimes qualified as poor, sometimes as upper middle class, sometimes spent years with no health insurance, and have received acceptably good- to -excellent health care my entire life. i pointedly did not wait for big brother to bring it to my door and hand it to me.

I'm not sure if you were referring to my post, but believe me, I'm not waiting for a hand out. I have checked into many, many types of health care, have done my homework, and can't afford any of them right now. My investigative skills may not be on a par with Brads, but I think I've seen most of them. We have a county hospital here, so, as I understand it, if anything really bad does happen, that is an option.

There you go. Warewolf confirms my point.
I don't know why my father in law doesn't have insurance, I am not going to question his life. Maybe it's too expensive? Maybe he makes a little too much to qualify for cheaper insurance? Or maybe he has a cheap insurance that he can affort but they won't pay for the $2,800/month? I don't know. But the fact remains that it's his life at stake without those medications.
I believe that society (governement, tax payers, etc.) have a moral responsibility towards the welfare of all its citizens.

In Canada, the health system is the provinces responsability, not the federal. So is the education system. So, yes, I agree with you. All the regions have different needs and it should not be a federal responsability. On the other hand, the federal does contribute (a little) financially to health and education, but the provincial governements administer it.

Of the People, by the Politician, for the Party.

Politics is NEVER 'for the People'...

hmmmm...

I have not investigated fully the problems with Medicare or Medicaid. I do know it was hard for me to get it. At the time I had lost my job and was in serious need of medical attention. I was a college aid but as a college aid, I was not a regular employee and enelagable for unemployment. I could not get COBRA because of its cost. I couldn't apply for unemployment because I was not a regular working Joe.

If it wasn't for my family, specifically my Mother, I would not have gotten the coverage I needed. Mostly because I wasn't poor enough at the time.


Many people do not know or have the resources to know what is out there to get them help. I know I am struggleing right now, but I do have many things going for me and have many sources to look for help (although I have not found them yet). When I was on the medicaid line I saw many who had nothing at all. Abused women, teenagers, young adults...


Alls I know is that it took allot of work to just get Medicare coverage. Allot of effort, and allot of time and eventually money because of the hours my Mom had to take from work to come with me.

It would seem allot of progams are configured to turn people down. I understand helping the most needy but sheesh. I really needed some assistance then.

North Korea just scares me... they seem to be predicable to a point. But Mad men are Mad men. I guess NK wont do anything. I guess we will see how it plays out.


Now how about that tax cut?