Preconceived ideas about America/Disney

[#1MMFan]

Lol, Slightly Goofy, you read my mind. I bought my mom a wee book from the Heritage House store next to Hall of Presidents which is full of Ben Franklin quotes, of which "Fish and visitors stink after three days" was the first one we all picked out!!!!

Hmm, the reciprocal visit, huh?... we have just been there, and believe me, it was frankly utterly disappointing to put it mildly. Fortunately we had 2 weeks at WDW immediately following our visit with our relatives to make up for the stress. LoL don't get me started on my trip, but if you want to know, I can PM you!!!!!

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

I hate to tell you this but the reason the reciprical visit went wrong is that your parents raised you wrong and they were probably also subjected to learning manners as well. (sad, but true)

I suggest that next time you lessen the time spent with the errant relatives and lengthen your stay at DW.

Feel free to pm me all the sordid details if you wish. I do not believe that you could possibly tell a tale of woe more horrifying than some I have but one never knows. LOL

Slightly Goofy

 

[disneyholic family]

Yes but that statement is misleading. Many young people choose not to have coverage. Many poor people don't have coverage but medical care is paid for with our vast safety net. Medicaid, etc. And ERs generally don't turn anyone away for urgent care if it's paid for or not.

The US system isn't perfect, but quality of care is higher and more accessable when needed than NHC.

absolutely incorrect.....emergency rooms in the US can and do turn away patients who can't pay....

 

[JerJan]

absolutely incorrect.....emergency rooms in the US can and do turn away patients who can't pay....

DisneyholicFamily...I don't know where you got your information but it's against the law to REFUSE to give medical care, hospitals CANNOT refuse to treat anyone in the case of TRUE emergencies!

 

[disneyholic family]

DisneyholicFamily...I don't know where you got your information but it's against the law to REFUSE to give medical care, hospitals CANNOT refuse to treat anyone in the case of TRUE emergencies!

not in all cases.....
let's put it this way....if the patient is considered to be "stable" (a person in critical condition can be considered stable in some situations) he can be refursed by the hospital and transferred to another hospital...
or cash payment can be demanded up front before the patient is admitted...
etc etc.

it is not a good situation...
my next door neighbor died at the age of 29 because of a catch 22 like this...leaving his pregnant wife and 2 children behind to pick up the pieces....

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

Yes, but they can and do transfer people to other hospitals because they do not want to treat them and when their Hill Burton responsiblities are met for the year they can be mighty picky about what is or is not an emergency.

I have been a poor mother with a sick child who was told over and over again "He will grow out of it, it is nothing serious" and then when I married a man with insurance all of a sudden he had an actual disease and was taken care of. Money talks and we know the rest of that story. Sad, but true.

Slightly Goofy

 

[disneyholic family]

and being the geek that i am, i went to look it up...
medicare only covers the elderly (and some non-elderly with disabilities)..
medicaid only covers the very poor....

according to the 2003 US Census, <B>there were 45 million americans with no medical insurance coverage at all</B>.....not private, not medicaid, not medicare...

 

[JerJan]

First off name the state, I find that hard to believe. As a paramedic who has worked in four states personally that's never been the case!

Yes, hospitals do transfer patients who are "STABLE" but critical but the key word here is "TRANSFER". They don't just send them away in a car , taxi or bus! Sometimes patients are transferred to the appropriate facility after they have been stabilized for MANY different reasons. Each hospital system has "SPECIFIC CRITERIA" in writing that must be met to be considered stable for transfer, believe me they don't want to get SUED by refusing to treat someone.

Sometimes things aren't what they appear to be. Yes, our system needs alot of SERIOUS help...maybe someday the POLITICIANS in this country will take health care SERIOUSLY!!

 

[disneyholic family]

First off name the state, I find that hard to believe. As a paramedic who has worked in four states personally that's never been the case!

Yes, hospitals do transfer patients who are "STABLE" but critical but the key word here is "TRANSFER". They don't just send them away in a car , taxi or bus! Sometimes patients are transferred to the appropriate facility after they have been stabilized for MANY different reasons. Each hospital system has "SPECIFIC CRITERIA" in writing that must be met to be considered stable for transfer, believe me they don't want to get SUED by refusing to treat someone.

Sometimes things aren't what they appear to be. Yes, our system needs alot of SERIOUS help...maybe someday the POLITICIANS in this country will take health care SERIOUSLY!!

yes they send them away in a car taxi or bus...
my neighbor had a heart attack....at the time he came to the ER, he wasn't critical.....yet......they demanded a huge up front payment from him....he didn't have medical coverage and couldn't afford the payment....
they turned him away....he went home, had a massive heart attack and died....at the age of 29...
he was an immigrant with no medical coverage.....his wife (an american), 2 small children and 3rd child due in another 6 months time, were left without a father and without any source of income (and with about $5 to their names)..
they would have been evicted and forced to live in their car if not for us and other neighbors who raised enough money to keep them afloat for 6 months until the public services took over (since she was then defined in the social service group of single mothers with dependent children)....ironic....he dies, she gets medical coverage and other help from the government....

 

[#1MMFan]

yes they send them away in a car taxi or bus...
my neighbor had a heart attack....at the time he came to the ER, he wasn't critical.....yet..........

Okay, I don't know much yet about the US medical system, but I am a doctor, and would be keen to know what part of a "heart attack" (M.I. in our language) is considered NOT critical?

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

JerJan, I am a former Buckeye myself and my brother is curently living in Cincinnati. He got very sick and lost his job and applied for disability. He was rejected and lost his insurance through Medicaid. He has no assets at all, his car was repossessed and was without his medications for a period of time. Luckily he finally got approved, recently, and it was just in time as he ended up in the emergency room. He had been twice before and been checked and told he was alright. Turned out he had a tumor in his ear, after he had insurance again.

The state was Ohio.

I live in Indiana now and had a friend whose children took all her assets and left her peniless. I drove her from agency to agency to get help for utility bills and free medicine. Luckily here we have an organization of doctors that volunteer so she was able to get some help. One of my doctors volunteers and he told me it was because of the large amount of people who are falling between the cracks.

The state, Indiana.

We currently have wonderful insurance through the company that my husband worked for. It is self insurance and they can, legally, take it away at any given moment. They recently took it away from the exempt and salary retirees and gave them a yearly check for $1600 to get their own insurance. It will cost many times that for people that age to get coverage.

I have read of doctor's in some areas that do not take insurance at all and charge much less for their services and still manage to make a living because of not having all the paperwork.

I heard an elderly friend talk about how her doctor was retiring and she was having trouble finding a new doctor as few doctors will take on Medicare/Medicaid cases.

It is a sad thing that even those of us with insurance could find ourselves bankrupt should be unlucky enough to have a serious disease. I only have a half million dollar policy. I used up almost $30,000 this year alone and that was for a fairly routine operation and I have a long way to go to Medicare. It is scary.

When you are young and working, many have good insurance but that is not a guarantee that you will when you age and get sicker.

#1MMFan, maybe the doctor did not catch the signs of a heart attack. From a hospital's point of view it might be advantageous to do so. If they take care of too many people for free they might not be able to stay in business for others. Is beyond my ken.

One governor, years ago, had a listing of possible medical conditions and their cheapest course of treatments and talked of rationing medical treatment to take care of the most for the least. I would be willing to submit to that for myself (not spend big bucks on a treatment not likely to be of help) but would not want that for a loved one.

I do not know the answers. Has to be something better.

Slightly Goofy

 

[disneyholic family]

Okay, I don't know much yet about the US medical system, but I am a doctor, and would be keen to know what part of a "heart attack" (M.I. in our language) is considered NOT critical?

he was only 'not feeling too well' at that point....no obvious signs of impending doom....before they would check him out to see what was causing him "to feel not too well" he had to provide proof of medical coverage or else pay a huge up front payment...
unfortunately we weren't friends at the time (his family just happened to be our next door neighbors, but we didn't really know them, other than to know that he was a recent immigrant married to an american)....had we known them and had they asked us, we would have readily given them the money...

but since he didn't have the money, he was never even checked to find out why he wasn't feeling well.......he never made it past the ER waiting room....later in the day he had a massive heart attack.........there is of course no way to know whether he could have been saved had the hospital admitted him when he first came.....but he certainly couldn't have been any worse off.........

 

[mushumadness]

Its the friendlyness (sp) for me, if theres somehing wrong while your over there, you'll get help without askin.

I had an asthma attack in the hotel one year and an american family sorted everything from the mabulance, to making sure my parents got too and from the airport, they also visited me too with a whole stash of things we still write now

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Its the friendlyness (sp) for me, if theres somehing wrong while your over there, you'll get help without askin.

I had an asthma attack in the hotel one year and an american family sorted everything from the mabulance, to making sure my parents got too and from the airport, they also visited me too with a whole stash of things we still write now

That's true - my wife Julie collapsed on Miami Beach on honeymoon with sunstroke, the pool attendants at the Thunderbird Hotel were really helpful, don't know what I would have done without them...she still had to go to Hospital though..

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

Johnny and Mush, I am willing to bet that there would be people just as willing to be helpful should I get sick in another country. It is normal to help guests in your home (country). Not that everyone would, in any place, but there are good people everywhere.

I am glad that there was someone there for you both. I have asthma and I fear getting sick at DW or anywhere as my husband would not even know how to dial 911. (not kidding)

Slightly Goofy

 

[WIcruizer]

absolutely incorrect.....emergency rooms in the US can and do turn away patients who can't pay....

I was not absolutely incorrect. Read my statement. I said GENERALLY not turned away for urgent treatment. And I stand by my statement, even with the examples you stated. Those are exceptions, not the rule.

As far as the stats you`use, I don't believe they include people with Medicaid (I never said anything about Medicare.) Regardless of the number of unisured, it's a choice. Responsible people will get married THEN buy insurance THEN have children. Irresponsible people will drop out of school, have children, and have few options. There are always EXCEPTIONS where responsible people get caught in tough temporary situations. But insurance is readily available in a whole myriad of options.

Now in Europe and Canada, you have little control. You are at the meercy of the government to decide when to get an MRI, for example. And often that could take months. Need an operation? Maybe you'll be approved, maaybe not. But again, you'll have to wait a long time. We have a lot of irresponsible people living in the U.S., and that's the reason our health care system isn't "perfect."

 

[disneyholic family]

I was not absolutely incorrect. Read my statement. I said GENERALLY not turned away for urgent treatment. And I stand by my statement, even with the examples you stated. Those are exceptions, not the rule.

As far as the stats you`use, I don't believe they include people with Medicaid (I never said anything about Medicare.) Regardless of the number of unisured, it's a choice. Responsible people will get married THEN buy insurance THEN have children. Irresponsible people will drop out of school, have children, and have few options. There are always EXCEPTIONS where responsible people get caught in tough temporary situations. But insurance is readily available in a whole myriad of options.

Now in Europe and Canada, you have little control. You are at the meercy of the government to decide when to get an MRI, for example. And often that could take months. Need an operation? Maybe you'll be approved, maaybe not. But again, you'll have to wait a long time. We have a lot of irresponsible people living in the U.S., and that's the reason our health care system isn't "perfect."

no, the statistics i gave from the 2003 census include medicaid and medicare...
there are 45 million americans with NO medical coverage whatsoever...
none....

you're rathering unforgiving of anyone who's down on their luck....i hope it never happens to you....but it does happen to good honest hard-working americans....certainly at least some of those 45 million without coverage are good decent people...not irresponsible as you label them....

as for other countries, i live in a country with socialized medicine, and while it's not utopia by any means, at least every single person in the country has medical coverage, including preventive care (not just when you have to go to the hospital)...and people are admitted to a hospital without proof of a bank balance...
perhaps that's why it has a longer life expentancy than the US...

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

I fear that you are both right, sort of. Just within my own family I see cases of what WIcruizer is saying. I have several siblings who have opted not to work or to work occasionally at places that do not offer benefits. It worked for them when they were younger as they were content to sit and watch others live lives but now they are older and in need of services and more. They look to those of us who did it the 'right' way to help them out. There is just so much we can do without ending up in trouble ourselves. It is hard to see and live through.

On the other hand there are many who did it the 'right' way and their jobs were outsourced or whatever and they found themselves out of work with either no other jobs available or jobs that paid much less and had little or no benefits. You also have those who devoted their working career to a company and retired to have the rug yanked out from under them when the company decided to withdraw the promised health benefits.

Education is the key to a better life. You get more choices when you have one. More choices equate to more chances to live the way you want.

I have seen people with insurance still brought to their knees with medical bills because it does not pay for everything.

Please forgive me if I am wrong (people in those countries would be the best judges) but I have read that in the socialized medicine countries the taxes can be 70% or even more and it takes away the incentive of individuals to achieve because of the 'safety net" from cradle to grave.

It is terribly hard to judge that which you have not lived. Both systems have their benefits and their faults. Anyone have some ideas on a better system? Ideas are wonderful things.


Slightly Goofy

 

[KayleeUK]

Going to bring this one to a close guy's.

Originally posted in 2003!!!! and now gone off-topic on to American Healthcare.