Keep seeing this message on Facebook

[moonsky]

Quote: No one should die because they cannot afford health care, no one should go broke because they get sick and no person should be denied medical care regardless of his or her immigration status. If you agree, please join us and post this as your status for the rest of today.

I don't want to offend anyone because I know many may have different opinion.

This is mine -I agree that pp should not die because they cannot afford healthcare. For other parts, it depends...

Will it result in higher premiums/higher taxes for majority of us. Will it increase health insurance expenses for majority of companies which are already struggling to survive and perhaps need to lay off more people or pass the cost to customers? A good friend of mine has been out of job for a year now.

I support the health spending account when it can be carried over if you don't use it. So, we save while we work and can use it when we can't work. Then, we won't be a liability for others.

For immigrants, IMO firm line should be drawn on the illegal ones. They should be treated only it is emergency. If they came here legally, that is another story. My friends' parents(over 60 yrs old and immigrated) paid more than $1K monthly premium for each of them. They can't communicate well in English but still find a way to work to support all expenses. They bake and provide home delivery service. They save majority of their earning and never needs to ask for financial help from their children.

My point is that it is difficult to open arms for everyone when our country's budget is already in deeply deficit and there are a lot of unemployments.


I am still not sure why pp post it on the FB. What are they trying to accomplish?

[lizzywednesday]

It's kind of a rock-in-the-pond effect.

There's not much to be accomplished beyond starting a real discussion among real people about what it means to have health care anywhere.

It's not a reflection of whether the person believes in furthering government-subsidized programs (because, like it or not, Medicare and Medicaid are government-subsidized health care programs ... and they work OK) so we have universal coverage in the Canadian or British vein (which are sometimes OK, but I have heard HORROR stories from ppl with direct experience) but rather a statement along the lines of:

This is the USA. We're largely considered to be the richest nation in the world.
The fact that some of our citizens are struggling to get the care they desperately need because they cannot afford it is maddening. The fact that I know a woman, who is a cancer survivor (breast cancer, leukemia, brain tumor) and domestic violence survivor, who cannot afford to feed her three children AND pay for the medications to keep her blood counts up and fight her recurring brain tumor, and she is someone who lives in the USA, makes me angry.

I believe there's got to be a way to provide care to everyone, but we're just going about it the wrong way ... and we're discussing the wrong issues.

The status updates are sparking EXACTLY this type of intelligent debate among my friends ... what about among yours? Or are you just seeing "like" expressions?

[mommylamb]

I've been seeing it a lot too and I've chosen not to put it on my status for a few reasons. I strongly support health care reform, but this particular message doesn't deal with the nuances. Way too heavy handed. Obviously people don't want others to go bancrupt or die. I also work for a bipartisan organization, and recently I've been friended by some work colleagues (not from within my organization, but people I represent) and I don't want to have something overtly partisan, even on my personal facebook page.

[Sillygirl]

For immigrants, IMO firm line should be drawn on the illegal ones. They should be treated only it is emergency.

I guess that sounds good in theory if you like that sort of thing. Let me give you an example of how that works in practice. We've had several illegal immigrants show up in the emergency room with undiagnosed kidney failure. They need dialysis three times a week or they die. It can take months to iron out all the paperwork to get them outpatient stable dialysis. Until then, they need to show up in an emergency room three times a week. An emergency room physician has to assess them and draw labs to confirm that yes, they still have kidney failure. Then they have to consult me and I have to arrange for an inpatient dialysis treatment. If we don't have any others scheduled that day, I have to pull in a nurse and a tech to do it. The hospital gets paid, sort of, for doing this because it's emergency care. But they don't cover their costs.

I can't give them anemia drugs to keep their blood counts up - those drugs are expensive and not considered emergency treatment. So instead I wait for their blood counts to drop to critical levels and then give them a transfusion, drawing blood out of a bank that's always short. I can't get a surgeon to place a fistula in their arms - again, not emergency treatment. So they use temporary plastic catheters that carry a hundred-fold higher risk of bloodstream infections. If they get infection, they'll be hospitalized for weeks of IV antibiotics. Which we'll lose money on. I can't give them the special injectable Vitamin D they need, so their bones erode and their parathyroid glands enlarge to the point that a surgery to remove them is their only option - once they finally get coverage. By the time they are granted dialysis coverage - and many are - they have a whole host of complications that are expensive to treat and often lead to lifelong problems, all of which were preventable.

Can you imagine what it's like to be in this situation? I can't imagine the patient's side of things. I only get the frustration at all the waste that takes place - money, resources, time, manpower. And I've not heard other options from the Republican side. Do they want us to let these people die in the streets? Or should we deport them, which is the same thing as a death sentence, literally they will die within a week. I don't believe that most Republicans would want that, except in some of my darker hours. But the current rhetoric that you cite is, forgive me, either willfully blind or dangerously naive.

[mommylamb]

I agree with Sillygirl that saying non-documented people shouldn't be covered is easier said than done and causes a lot of waste. Also-- and I'm thinking of coverage for certain govt. programs-- it can be really costly for states to determine whether someone is truly illegal or not. And, a lot of legal residents who can't find their documentation often fall through the cracks.

[vonfirmath]

The message is annoying me because of what it implies the people putting it up think about those who don't support the current health care plan in Congress. Plus, because it is being copied and reposted, its just like spam in your box. better to make something up and say what YOU think not what someone else wrote for you.

[arivecchi]

I guess that sounds good in theory if you like that sort of thing. Let me give you an example of how that works in practice. We've had several illegal immigrants show up in the emergency room with undiagnosed kidney failure. They need dialysis three times a week or they die. It can take months to iron out all the paperwork to get them outpatient stable dialysis. Until then, they need to show up in an emergency room three times a week. An emergency room physician has to assess them and draw labs to confirm that yes, they still have kidney failure. Then they have to consult me and I have to arrange for an inpatient dialysis treatment. If we don't have any others scheduled that day, I have to pull in a nurse and a tech to do it. The hospital gets paid, sort of, for doing this because it's emergency care. But they don't cover their costs.

I can't give them anemia drugs to keep their blood counts up - those drugs are expensive and not considered emergency treatment. So instead I wait for their blood counts to drop to critical levels and then give them a transfusion, drawing blood out of a bank that's always short. I can't get a surgeon to place a fistula in their arms - again, not emergency treatment. So they use temporary plastic catheters that carry a hundred-fold higher risk of bloodstream infections. If they get infection, they'll be hospitalized for weeks of IV antibiotics. Which we'll lose money on. I can't give them the special injectable Vitamin D they need, so their bones erode and their parathyroid glands enlarge to the point that a surgery to remove them is their only option - once they finally get coverage. By the time they are granted dialysis coverage - and many are - they have a whole host of complications that are expensive to treat and often lead to lifelong problems, all of which were preventable.

Can you imagine what it's like to be in this situation? I can't imagine the patient's side of things. I only get the frustration at all the waste that takes place - money, resources, time, manpower. And I've not heard other options from the Republican side. Do they want us to let these people die in the streets? Or should we deport them, which is the same thing as a death sentence, literally they will die within a week. I don't believe that most Republicans would want that, except in some of my darker hours. But the current rhetoric that you cite is, forgive me, either willfully blind or dangerously naive.

This is insane. What a crazy system. I am glad to have some of my tax dollars help such people in need.

[kijip]

The message is annoying me because of what it implies the people putting it up think about those who don't support the current health care plan in Congress.

On it's face this little status blurb though says nothing about either the plans in Congress or that people actively want people to die or go broke. But in the absence of some solution, yes there are people suffering, dying or going broke over their healthcare access. No one actively wants that, but it happens. A statement of values can always be taken to imply something about people that don't share those values no matter who is making the statement. But I for one am not willing to not have values just so that I don't, by implication, hurt the feelings of those that disagree.

And, no, I do not have this update on my facebook page.

[Fairy]

I put it on my FB status because I believe it. Sillygirl's post hits the nail on the head of why I believe it. The fact is that these are human beings. I don't want these human beings whether they're here illegally or with sponsorship or whatever dying miserable deaths because they don't have the money to pay for treatment. That kind of viral FB status is meant to drive consciousness and buzz. Obama is losing the public option fight, and alot of it is due to the misinformation out there about what it would really mean. People get their information from their pundits and talking heads, much of which are all out lies, or they cite sources on the Internet that have no authoritative meaning. I believe in healthcare for all. Don't think I'm not a little scared, cuz I have alot wrong with me and have amazing awesome healthcare that my employer pays the bulk of. It's why I'm so thankful to still be employed. But I cannot stand the fact that I have my comfy orthotics and am walking around just fine when a comparable woman god knows where is suffering with cankles the size of Rhode Island for the simple fact that her flat feet have turned on her and now her pain is so overwhelming that she can't even walk to the corner to take the bus to her crappy-ass job washing a toilet. Soooo .... that's my deal.

We can fund the public option.
We should ensure dying people on our soil don't die in the streets.
Even if they're not here legally.
If that means I make a little less money and have to cancel my cleaning lady and stop the Starbucks addiction, then I'm ok with that.

[arivecchi]

We can fund the public option.
We should ensure dying people on our soil don't die in the streets.
Even if they're not here legally.
If that means I make a little less money and have to cancel my cleaning lady and stop the Starbucks addiction, then I'm ok with that.

I am there with ya Fairy.