Last week I have being notified by helathcare administration office(cobra) that my policy has being canselled due to lock of payment!
well some of the people do know my ongoing struggle with this healthcare situation. since my wife lost her job (shipped to overseas) I paid to this company which has being designated as a administrator by her company.Amount we paid totals $5229 and we see the doctor twice so each visit coast us about $2600 and we constantly have a problem with payment being posted late so I decide to send four months payment and hoping we would not have to go through with this bullshit again. Guess what, happen again and I got a letter saying our policies has being canselled due to lock of payment.So you can imagine how pissed I was when I called them.After 20 phone call, about 20 hours screeming and yelling we come to conclusion that I made all my payments and they lost my payments in the system and it would take few more days to fixed and if I needed serv. I should go pay for it then they will reimbursed me later.What a fucking greattttt systemmmmmmmm

and bunch of you guys talking about socialize medicine?
common get real I take socialize medicine over this bologna any time!
First why anybodies health should be open field for this scumbaggs to profit?
you guys talking about gov.bureaucracy in universal healthcare, hell this is a private entp. and my payment goes to two different place then to helthcare provider then to doctor isnt this way toomuch bureaucracy? Gov. cant do any worst then this!
all this ins. companies makes billions of billions dollar profit, why couldnt we get a cheaper by eliminating the profit out of healthcare system?
Doctors,nurse, hospitals, I understand. But why the hell we have to make insurance companies rich?
so they could denied us a health care? or make the system immpossible with all this paper work and middleman?

how much we would save by not filling all those nonesense paperwork? that do; no good to me but provide the ins. company with ammunution to denied me a care!

how much we would save by eliminating all those people do no medical serv. but only paperwork or coordinate the service beetwen doctors office and insurance companies?

how much more time my doctor would have if he did not have to deal with this blood sucking insurance companies?

how much earlier I could see my doctor when I visit his office if they did not have to file all those claims?

Would my medicine coast be same with the rest of the world if we did not have this scummbags to feed?

Would our citizen be in the top ten countries list, when it comes to healthcare if we did not have to feed this insurance companies?

would we be able to stay in hospital after a major operation if we did not have menage care anymore?

would the new mom be able to stay two or three days in hospital, if we did not have to carry this crooks on our back?
I could go on and on. But I want to hear your input on this. could we affort, this system being not fixed?

Kaan, I think the doctors prefer the status quo.

So is this mean our helthcare system will be like this for rest of the eternety?

I'm not so sure. Now that so many of them have lost control of their practices and their relationships with patients, they may not think that having their practices run by a clerk at an insurance company is all that great.

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Email at wsbhtr@cox.net

I don't know. But this country runs on greed. And doctors are as greedy as the next guy. They go into the field of medicine expecting to make certain amounts of money. Ultimately without them there is no health system.

Admittedly in socialist countries doctors go into the field with a somewhat different motivation. But this country is as far away from being founded on that principal as there ever has been. It's still tons more money than they'd make in a different country.

Sure, humans are all greedy, and doctors are human. But I think many of today's your doctors knew from the time they started med school that the system had changed, and an MD was not a guaranteed path to riches.

I guess we are all influenced by the stories we know, but one story I know is of a girl who was one of my daughter's best friends in high school. She was a bit late going to med school, maybe two or three years after she got her bachelor's degree. But at age 42, she finally just got to start a practice and make some money. After an internship, she had a surgical residency. Then she had another residency in surgical oncology. She could have started practicing then, but she got a coveted fellowship at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute in NYC, where she got to train under the people at the top of the field. Now, at age 42 (when I was already retired from the Marine Corps) she is finally in a position to make decent money. But even now, she is helping create a department at a hospital in Houston. She will probably make decent money, but I don't think she will be rich.

With her skills and all the years of hard work and unbelievable hours she has put in, I think she deserves to make money. Unfortunately, the insurance companies will limit her ability to do so, as well as limiting her ability to do good medicine.

Of course a single payer system (the dread socialized medicine) would try to hold cost down too, but at least there wouldn't be all those middlemen sucking off of her tit. Medicare has lower overhead than any other health care system in the country. And of course those countries with a single payer plan are getting so much better results than we are, while paying much lower percentages of GDP.

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Email at wsbhtr@cox.net

Lets pretend then for a moment that there are people who go into this field with lower income expectations and nobler attitudes.

How do you think these people will feel after the first time they are a target for exploitation through a law suit?

What I'm saying I guess is that it's a snowball effect with all these inescapable factors contributing to the mess Kaan is talking about.

I don't think I get your point?

No one likes to be sued. Doctors with lower expectations need malpractice insurance just like doctors with higher expectations.

If you respond, don't wait up for my answer. I gotta go to bed.

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Email at wsbhtr@cox.net

Well, to pay for that insurance they need to make more money. And it is fair to assume that those insurance rates will climb as all other insurance is doing.

Kaan,

Here is little bit of info if you want to complain. Welcome to Socialized health care aka COBRA in my opinion. Remember COBRA is a law and is handled by the government.


Continuation coverage laws are administered by several agencies. The Departments of Labor and the Treasury have jurisdiction over private sector health plans. The United States Public Health Service administers the continuation coverage law as it affects public sector health plans.

The Labor Department's interpretative and regulatory responsibility is limited to the disclosure and notification requirements. If you need further information on your election or notification rights with a private sector plan, write to the nearest office of the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration or:

U.S. Department of Labor Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration Division of Technical Assistance and Inquiries 200 Constitution Ave., N.W. (Room N-5619) Washington, D.C. 20210

The Internal Revenue Service, which is in the Department of the Treasury, is responsible for publishing regulations on COBRA provisions relating to eligibility and premiums. Both Labor and Treasury share jurisdiction for enforcement.

The U.S. Public Health Service, located in the Department of Health and Human Services, has published Title XXII of the Public Health Service Act entitled "Requirements for Certain Group Health Plans for Certain State and Local Employees." Information about COBRA provisions concerning public sector employees is available from the:

U.S. Public Health Service Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health Grants Policy Branch (COBRA) 5600 Fishers Lane (Room 17A-45) Rockville, Maryland 20857

Federal employees are covered by a law similar to COBRA. Those employees should contact the personnel office serving their agency for more information on temporary extensions of health benefits.

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Steven Prater
Blanchard, OK

Count yourself lucky you got care when you needed it. I realize it isn't perfect, but you COULD live in Canada where you might have had to wait months or even years for elective surgery.

sure, it's all greed.

I wonder how many of you guys bitching about greed do whatever you do without thought to what that work will pay, or what benefits it brings, what retirement it builds?

I could go on, but somehow I doubt there's a single one of us here that go out there every day just yearning for the satisfaction of someone else.

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I Carry A Gun Because A Cop Is Too Heavy.

http://www.panamacitydivecharters.com/

You obviously have never talked to a doctor or noticed all of the people who doctors have to employ just so they can bill insurance companies and try to get paid for their services.

You seem to think that Doctors shouldn't be able to make a good living for what they do, do you realize how long they have to go to school and then when they do get out of college and medical school, go through residency, they can finally start working and paying back all of the student loans they took out.

Also all of the time they were in school learning to be a Doctor, they were not earning money, they delayed their earning years.

I would rather go to a Doctor that makes very good money and lives in a very nice house, why? because that means the guy has drive, and guys like that are very good at what they do, I don't want my Dr. to be a slacker who just gets by.

What services do you provided for free as a result of your "principles?" What noble intenions led you to your current postion Mother Tersa? How much of a discount do you provided on your goods/services because it is more than people in other countries make?

What's your point father Tuck? I believe in a free market so let them charge what they want to. I just pointed out some of the factors that contribute to the state of things today.

On the other hand I can argue that the state has too much control. Making drugs less accessible to people who need them and suppressing alternative medicine.

100% FEE FOR SERVICE.... provides the best possible care with the least waste of money.

No one is entitled to anything in my opinion. Insurance companies suck, no doubt. But there is and should be no free lunch. If people didn't grow up in this country feeling like the government and society owed them something, then it would be a much better place. I shouldn't have to pay for a homeless crack heads hospital bill (like I do now)!

For example, you want socialized dentistry, you would get extractions, silver fillings and dentures. And you would wait months maybe years if it wasn't an urgent emergency. Do you think most surgeons et all, take pride in their work, when they recieve the same government issued rembursement, NO! Socialized health care will do nothing but lower the standards and create more beuracratic waste of our health care dollars.

Do you realize how much time and money invested it takes to earn a doctorate degree. In the mean time all these people who feel they are entitled to healthcare benefits are screwing around, drinking beer and partying it up. If some of you don't like the healthcare system and the rest of the stuff that goes on this country, than just stop bitching all the time and move somwhere else.

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Buy my Boat http://www.spearfishingplanet.com/f2...tboards-21243/

I live in Canada - no complaints, some wait time for some procedures yes but overall handled in a timely manner. Seen lots of health care issues dealt w/ in the GWN from triple bypass, birth of a child, knee replacement, 3-4 ER trips,....

You can complain about the CDN sytem but in my opinion it is less broken than the US system after having lived in both. Both systems have their flaws. My cousin is an ER physcian who has been recruited by US hospitals but does not see any reason to leave at this time.

Here is timely article from today's LA Times.

CAMPAIGN '08
Democratic hopefuls agree on Medicare as a healthcare model

The contenders envision private insurance continuing, but they see a government-run plan as a competitive option.
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 21, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have been sniping at each other for months over healthcare, but there's one thing the top Democratic presidential candidates agree on: Americans of all ages should have the choice of buying a government-run plan modeled on Medicare.

The idea, which would set up a competition between a new government plan and private insurance programs, has been overshadowed by the political horse race. But it's one of the most far-reaching and controversial proposals for making health insurance more affordable and more widely available.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...adlines-nation

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Email at wsbhtr@cox.net

%100 Fee for service
I want to say hope you`ll devolope some kind of sickness that would coast you millions of dollars to cure; but I could not bring my self to wish such horroble thing for any human being.
you better start to save now otherwise you`ll be in the bad shape.Knowing even a day spend in hospital would not required intensivecare coasting thousands of dollar.
but wait I know a lots of guys thinking like you while they feel healthy, but when the shit hits the fan they would be the first one out there looking for those god dammn social programs and let the public pay for it.Just like the SS. I see lots of folks complaint about it, I never see anyone returned the SS check.
I see way too many people complain about social medicine, when the times come for them I never see one say "no! I dont want medicare"


and last about your complaining to pay crack heads,homeless,etc, etc,
we are allready paying the bills for those guys anyway, if we can pay theirs why cant we pay the ones works,pays taxes and contrubutes to society?

I dont know where you get your facts,
but I can tell you this, Cobra not a gov ,run serv, and it is run by private companies. I know this becouse I pay them every month.