@Modern Survival:

In the future when talking about magical farting angels and unicorns, please give me a heads up that I’ll be laughing uncontrollably. I darn near hit myself while swinging a 3lb hammer I was laughing so hard.

Wow! Just got done listening to today’s podcast! Very inspiring for me and rings of what the nitty gritty is all about! I am even more determined to prepare our lives for whatever comes and to fight for individual freedoms. Also, the part about people blaming each other is so true. We need to unite, not divide. That’s the bottom line. Great show today! Thanks!
Shawnne

Jack, the part where you talked about family members choosing politicians over each other really hit me hard. My aunt (who is certifiably insane) got into a political argument with my grandfather (who was a rotten drunk) on Christmas. They ended up going a few years without talking. He passed away before they could make amends. They were both nimrods but it still makes me sad knowing he died without cleaning up that mess.

@Modern Survival — Regarding Medicaid, I have a story that I want to share. Here in Indiana, we have a program called “Children’s Health Insurance Program”. We pay a small premium to cover our kids which gives us affordable access to healthcare. My husband makes a decent wage, but because he works for a small company, covering the whole family with a high deductible plan would cost around 20% of my husband’s annual pay.

Complicating matters more is the fact that I’m blind. Blind folks in this country have an unemployment rate of something around 80%, and it’s certainly NOT because the government makes it “easy” for us not to work. Employers simply don’t want to hire us. This means that I can’t get a job that offers better benefits than my husband’s, and if we want more money coming into the home, I have to figure out how to make it happen without being employed outside the home.

So back to Medicaid… The CHIP program is part of Medicaid. Because of our income, we pay $33/mo to cover our 3 kids, and I don’t have to worry about whether or not I can get them medical care if they need it. Now, I realize that I could run my kids to the pediatrician every day of the world and Medicaid would pay for it, but I don’t. What’s more, I don’t have to worry about situations like this:

My toddler starts throwing up. I sit at home thinking it’s just a stomach bug and it’ll pass. After 24hrs, my kid’s still not better, and my gut’s telling me that something isn’t right. Because I have coverage for my kid, I can take him to the doc and get an expert’s set of eyes on him. It could be nothing to worry about or it could be something really serious, and with kids, it’s hard to tell.

If I don’t have the ability to take my kid to the doctor and it’s something serious, things would have to needlessly get a lot worse before I could take him to the hospital to get treatment.

This is indeed what happened to me with my son when he was 3. He went down hill SO fast from a simple stomach bug that he almost died. It’s possible that had I been worried about how I was going to pay for his doctor/ER visit, I would have delayed taking him until it was too late, so I’m grateful that I have an option that my husband and I wouldn’t otherwise be able to provide for our children.

All that being said, I do view my kids’ coverage like a “safety net”. Even though we get hounded to bring our kids in ALL the time for “well child” checks, we don’t do that. We take our kids to the doctor only when they’re sick, and we’re thrilled to be able to do that. See, the way the “system” works right now, it’s cost us $150-$200 for self-pay to get an expert’s set of eyes to tell us if it’s just a virus or something much worse, and my family can’t afford that in order to stand on principle. The best I can manage is getting CHIP for my kids and then only using it when it’s absolutely necessary. I realize not all folks do that with those government programs, but we do. And until I can afford to do otherwise, that’s how it has to be. I don’t know what we’d do if we didn’t have that as an option.

OK, I’m ready for the tomatoes to get thrown my way. 🙂

Jack was right on about Medicaid not saving money. One of the selling points was that by giving poor and low income health insurance the amount of Emergency Department use would go down. (sound like something we have heard about Obama care?)

I can speak for a fact that in Cleveland, this is not the case. Jack says his wife’s office was filled with well to do medicaid holders. But he did not see the many more that never bother with going to the doctor at all.

We often take people to the ED who have Medicaid who can’t be bothered with making an appointment to see a doc. I’ve taken in kids with diabetes and asthma who have on record an MD two blocks from their home address but are not up to date on their shots because “The ER don’t give them”.

Mom only goes to the ED with the kids when things get bad because you can get a ride if you call 911 and get faster service. (you don’t) And the doc’s office is always packed, you have to wait, and they don’t give you a ride home.

I also work in an ED once a week and Jack is also right, Doc’s and Nurses should be allowed to tell people to go home. Sunday we had someone show up with a rash on their arm (medicaid), another show up with a “fever” of 98.9(uninsured), and a sore foot from the high heals she was wearing on her date(medicaid). They all complained that they were in the ED for more than four hours each and only saw the doc once.

This is on top of the drug over doses, alcohol related injuries, and self inflicted events (over dose on mom’s birth control pills was the highlight laugh of the night). My section treated 47 patients in 12 hours, of those 40% were on medicaid, about 10 to 15% uninsured, and only 6 patients were really sick needing treatment right away. (the rest did not need anything or could have waited till they saw their doctor)

Now granted my Hospital is not in one of the nicer cities, so i’m sure we see more medicaid patients than average. But most that come in are for non-emergency reasons, and when an emergency it is often because they neglected to seek preventive treatment like having insurance is suppose to prevent.

Medicaid is not a safety net, it is a net, a trap.

for “Top W. Kone”

and yet, in your own words…

“If I wanted America to Succeed, I would stop complaining about people on food stamps, welfare, and Medicaid. I would go and help at the Food Bank, Adult literary programs and youth programs. Instead of complaining about the burden on the tax payer I would make sure people had places to go to get help that did not burden the tax payer. This would also help me see them as people, not burdens.”

I’ll repeat that, cause I don’t know how to use html to emphasize it: “This would also help me see them as people, not burdens.”

Mwatsous, I did not say that people can NOT go to emergency rooms for treatment, I said (maybe not clearly enough) that the uninsured can’t go for non-acute medical care, ie something that can be a “treat and release” type of thing. How about the downhill slide of vision problems that will result in permanent blindness? How about something like diabetes–and before lots of you go off the rails on diet and exercise, there are many who have a genetic predisposition towards this. How about cancer? Ever try to get that treated at an ER?

Saying that most people go in to get treatment for insignificant issues flies in the face of reality in my experience and observation of over 50 years. Yes, I’m glad anyone, insured or uninsured can get a compound fracture fixed in the ER. It does not offer or replace general/non-emergency/preventative care that is desperately needed by millions of folks who have no way to pay for it.

There just seems to be a lack of compassion in this country for people who are out of work, working poor or just plain poor. It’s too bad–our numbers are growing every day. You could be among us one day. I want America to be a just and compassionate society. Ignoring the multitude for the sake of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations isn’t going to work, in my book.