Like Doug said in his post a little bit ago, the treatment for your ear
infection would cost you about $800 here in the USA if you were uninsured
and that is if they would even treat you at all. A few yrs ago I had a
kidney stone that wouldn't pass through and the pain was unbearable. My
doctor sent me to a local hospital for a CAT Scan to see where the stone was
lodged. It cost $3000 for the 5 minutes of work from a hospital technician.
At the time I had no income at all. I was as poor as you can be, living on
handouts from friends and family, and the hospital told me I didn't qualify
for the government's indigent program because I was a single man. The
hospital hounded me for 2 years with phone calls to my parents house several
times a day and letters threatening to sue me because I did not pay it. I
had no way to, and my family couldn't afford it either. I finally went to
New Mexico because a friend there offered me a place to live, and my father
hired a lawyer to send the collection agency a letter stating that I had
dissapeared and they didn't know where I was and that it was my father's
phone they were calling and since he owed them nothing they had no right to
call it. They stopped after that. I'll never pay it, even if I suddenly came
into wealth. I still earn less than $500 a month and cannot find a job...my
income is from selling my photos on my website. Like I said, if I became
rich I'd still refuse to pay, it is a moral issue to me....health care is a
basic human right.
What's sad is that a man with a university degree is unemployable here. I
have a fine art degree, and I found out after graduating that no one, not
even McDonald's will hire such people here in Indiana. I have now been
unemployed for 9 years and no business will hire someone who has been out of
work that long.
--
Chris Crawford
Photography & Graphic Design
Fort Wayne, Indiana
http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com My portfolio
http://blog.chriscrawfordphoto.com My latest work!
http://www.plumpatrin.com Something the world NEEDS.
On 5/25/08 10:12 AM, "Gordon Ross" <gordross@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi Chris:
>
> Thank you for making this strait forward statement of facts. As a
> Canadian I don't have to have these concerns and although our system
> is not perfect it is fair, equitable and equally accessed by all our
> residents. We can thank a prairie politician by the name of Tommy
> Douglas who put people first and valued health above all. Why the US
> with all its greatness continues to fail in social reform is part of
> the negative mystery that other people on the planet look at and can
> only wonder why. It is not ours to criticize but I think to offer
> example and the hope that it doesn't have to be that way.
>
> I volunteer with Habitat for Humanity and have been building houses
> with some of my co-workers in Las Varas Mexico. Last Sept. we were
> doing 3 houses, we broke into three groups of six and each group did a
> house. Our house needed a septic tank dug 7' X 7' X 7' by hand with
> so so shovels. I managed to get an ear infection. Never one to take
> small measures -both ears and within a day they were totally swollen
> shut all I could really hear was my pulse. Las Varas is about halfway
> between Puerto Vallarta and the inland town of Tepic, our local
> transpo guys figured Tepic was closer so I headed there. I have both
> corporate and Cdn health care coverage and also had the Habitat
> coverage but you need to dial 30 numbers to access it. Frankly, I can
> pay and so that isn't a concern but I was headed into the Mexican
> system and had no idea as to how it worked. We got to the hospital
> which was busy and moderatly sized. We found the specialty wing and
> went to the desk of the Otologist and were told that they could see me
> right away but as a foreigner I would first have to go back to the
> Hospital Administration office and pay cash. I was not going to use
> the 30 digit number and frankly have no problem in paying for my
> health so we lined up and got to the wicket window where the cost was
> explained. It was about $5.00 CDN. The medications that I purchased
> at the Pharmacia were a total of $14.00 CDN. My problem had been
> resolved and quite expediciously and inexpensively, my gratitude to
> Mexico. I can only wonder what treatment I would have gotten and what
> the cost would be had I been in the US.
>
>
> Gord
>
> On 25-May-08, at 12:21 AM, Chris Crawford wrote:
>
>> The USA supposedly has fully paid medical care for the needy, but the
>> government here sets the income limits to receive any kind of
>> financial help
>> (Medical care, food assistance, housing assistance, etc) so
>> artificially low
>> that no one can qualify without hiding assets or lying about income.
>>
>> The "Poverty Line", for example, the income level at which one is
>> considered
>> poor in the USA is set at $13,000 a year for a family of four and
>> something
>> like $8000 for a single person. The problem with that is that no
>> family of
>> four can live on less than $30,000 a year in my hometown which has an
>> extremely low cost of housing and other living expenses compared to
>> most of
>> the country. In places like Santa Fe, New Mexico (where I lived till
>> recently) a family of four needs a BARE MINIMUM income of $60,000 a
>> year to
>> just survive (housing for said family would cost about $3500 a month
>> there,
>> compared to $800 a month in Fort Wayne, Indiana).
>>
>> So, the poverty line is bogus for even the lowest-cost areas and is
>> laughably cruel in areas with high housing costs. Here in Indiana
>> you cannot
>> get Medicaid (the government health program for the poor) unless you
>> are a
>> pregnant woman (she loses the coverage after the baby is born), or
>> you are a
>> child under age 18 whose parents make less than $15,000 a year.
>> That's an $8
>> an hour job, but a man or woman needs to earn $15 an hour to support
>> him/herself and a child in Indiana, and most people earning less
>> than $15 an
>> hour do not have insurance because they cannot afford it. Men cannot
>> get
>> medicaid at all no matter how poor they are.
>>
>> Mi familia es de Espana (my family is from Spain). If I could habla
>> Espanol
>> (speak Spanish) better I'd go back! It can't be worse than it is
>> here. Hell
>> Mexico might not even be that bad. There are jobs for educated
>> people there,
>> unlike here, and I have a university degree (and have been told more
>> times
>> than I can remember that I am totally unemployable...I have applied
>> for 800
>> jobs in 9 years and gotten only one interview and no job!).
>>
>> If you believe in God, Andrew, THANK HIM that you live in Australia.
>> How
>> ever bad you think it is, it is NOT that bad.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Chris Crawford
>> Photography & Graphic Design
>> Fort Wayne, Indiana
>>
>> http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com My portfolio
>>
>> http://blog.chriscrawfordphoto.com My latest work!
>>
>> http://www.plumpatrin.com Something the world NEEDS.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/25/08 12:52 AM, "Andrew Fildes" <afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> In my limited experience, those countries that provide automatic
>>> mediacal care to all citizns often do it rather badly - to the point
>>> where my parents in the UK took out private insurance on top (BUPA)
>>> to avoid long waits for what the government had decided were non-
>>> urgent elective procedures - like hip replacements.
>>> I favour a mix as we have here of voluntary private insurance, partly
>>> tax deductible. heavily underwritten by government subsidy and with
>>> full welfare provision for the needy and indigent - seems to work
>>> rather well. People still complain about it though. Of course.
>>> Andrew Fildes
>>> afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 25/05/2008, at 11:28 AM, Chris Crawford wrote:
>>>
>>>> Now, fuel is getting as costly as
>>>> everywhere else but on top of that we have to contend with being
>>>> screwed on
>>>> things like medical care that other countries provide for all
>>>> citizens.
>>>>
>>>> And, no, the USA is no longer a democracy...it is a Plutocracy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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