Every American I've ever run into who's against a national health plan

[raccoon]

ALREADY HAS group insurance through their employer (so far) or Medicare (which is a form of a national health plan).

Surprise, surprise.

Your experience? Have you EVER run into any American who DIDN'T have insurance and was AGAINST a national health plan for Americans?

[WCGreen]

1. I'm on Medicare and Insurance and I am sure for a National Health

Care plan.

[Ishoutandscream2]

2. No, I can't say that I have, even though most I know are Bushbots

I have group insurance with my company, and I am certainly for national health insurance. Conservatives can't look past beyond themselves, and don't think of the greater good. That's what separates us from them.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Its the American mentality: "I got Mine/Fuck You"

Its the root of all that ails us.

Its why you get cut off in traffic

Its why we fight over a place in line at the grocery

Its why we don't care about the poor or the elderly

Its why we drove Bimmers and Mercs, and then switched to Escalades and Hummers.

The list is endless.

"I got Mine/Fuck You"

[schrodinger_I]

10. Not quite

I have a Bimmer and a Merc and don't share that " I got mine" viewpoint.
You are painting things with a broad brush.

[Dollface]

12. Please don't make American mentality synonymous with conservative mentality.

Most people don't fit on the list above. Of course, I don't live in a major city, drive on congested freeways or shop on major paydays.

[Donnachaidh]

14. it's pitiful that it is the way of things in this country, isn't it?

We can be so proud of a country where people will crap on their neighbors, if they think it will get them something.

[Fumesucker]

25. BMW made some very fuel efficient vehicles in the mid 80's

The "eta" models: 325e and 528e..

As well as a turbodiesel, the 524td.

All the eta models had real time mpg gauges in them and the 325e had a trip computer that would give you trip mpg as standard equipment and it was an option on the 528e.

Eta is a Greek letter that is commonly used in engineering to signify efficiency.

[bryant69]

4. That's fair enough

But many jobs provide health benefits these days. I think a more fertile ground for arguing for National Health Care is the fact that insurance companies are crooks.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[pberq]

7. What about the millions and millions of Americans

who are uninsured or underinsured?

"many jobs provide health benefits these days"

What about the many, many jobs that do not?

[bryant69]

9. I need to go look up numbers on this

My suspicion is that going after those who are underinsured and talking about how private insurance is failing even those who have it will provide more voters than focusing on those who don't have insurance. That said, fixing insurance for those who have it but not enough of it should also fix it for those who don't have any.

Bryant

[raccoon]

8. Not in my experience. "But many jobs provide health benefits these days."

I work at a community college. 50% of the employees are part-time, no benefits.

Yes, insurance companies are crooks.

[flygal]

5. Funny you should ask - my repub inlaws get there's through a labor union

but last weekend they said they were going deep in the hole because they can't afford the premiums now that they are self employed and business is drying up. He's an electrician and I always found it ironic they got their insurance through the labor union their employees are part of and yet they were always spouting off against anything left wing.

Now my mother-in-law works full time for the govt and will start getting their insurance. makes you go hmmmmm. I really want to forward that Bill O'reilly clip - they think he's a God and even bought his kids' book.

[BlueJazz]

6. Oh..Yes ...but (sadly) they're people who are....

... extremely ignorant of the process we go through now.
When I ask how much ...percentage wise...the insurance companies now take "off the top", I usually get answers like
"Oh, 10-15 percent"....In short, they have no idea what-so-ever what the hell is going on.. Sigh...

[Donnachaidh]

11. we have employee health care and medicare and I'm FOR a national plan

I want to see the large medical for-profit companies broken up. I want to tear down the connection between insurance companies and health care, because the record clearly shows that people DIE when insurance companies are involved in any way. Expanding Medicare will NOT fix things. Forcing insurance companies to cover everyone will only force the insurance companies to come up with newer, sneakier ways of either refusing treatment or overcharging people with pre-existing conditions - to the point that they won't be able to get treatment because they cannot afford the co-pays.

[napi21]

13. I would add another group of people to the ones you mentioned.

People who HAVE a health care plan but never had to use it! I know a LOT of people who HAVE what they thought was a good HC Plan, UNTIL they had to use it for some emergency or unforeseen illness. The copays cn KILL YOU! I happen to be one of those people! For years I really didn't understand what all the fuss was about. I can pay the $20 to visit the Dr. I read our policy and it looked like most everything was covered to my satisfaction. THEN, I broke my ankle. No big deal...right? The copays totaled $3,100! and that didn't include the prescription costs! That may not sound like much to YOU, but our annual income is $28,000 and we simply don't HAVE that much disposable income.

[raccoon]

15. Good grief. Thanks for sharing that.

"The copays totaled $3,100!"

[napi21]

16. Yes, and a lot of them fall into that 80/20 rule.

Look at your own policy. Everyone I know now has a policy that states the copays for Dr. visits and other specifics, and then when they discuss hospitalization they state "Your insurance will pay 80% of the bill and you will be responsible for 20%. If you've never had to use that protion of your coverage, you have no feel for what that 20% can mean. Then of course there's all the incidental $100 here, $165 there for the anesthetist, the surgeon, the ER...... I had this very conversation with the ins. rep. I asked how I can estimate what that 20% could mean in the future?" At least then I could maybe try to save a bit each week to keep an emergency fund to cover it. Of course she said there's really no way to be able to estimate anything like that because you can't predict what problems you're going to have!

[hunter]

24. Often 80/20 doesn't turn out to be 80/20.

More like 65/35 and you have to fight to get that.

I hate the medical insurance companies. This industry is rotten and should be blown away by a single payer system. Quite a few of insurance industry executives deserve prison time for their blatantly illegal dealings.

Unfortunately they have so much money they essentially own a greater share of our government than the people.

[reformedrethug]

19. We are covered under my wife's employeer plan

and its pretty decent. $5/15 drug costs (generic/name brand), VSP for vision, I forget who runs the dental, and now we come to the medical side. Every family gets $3,000 per year regardless of family size to start with. What this is for is it covers the deductibles up to the 3K limit, then its $650 straight out of pocket, then the company picks back up at a 90/10 split up to $2,750.00 for total out of pocket yearly expense. When you hit that limit then the company picks it back up at 100%. They also have the pretax spending account which is good if you know your going to exceed the first $3K because that is your money so you can budget so much a year to cover that amount. That way the hit is not as bad if you spread it out over the full year, for a weekly pay schedule it works out to 53.00 a week. Granted with your income that is a nice size chunk of your weekly pay.

Also most preventative care is covered and does not come out of the initial $3K so overall its not that bad.

[napi21]

26. Youve got one of the nicer plans I've heard about. I love the $3,000

a year advance. They've effectively paid yourout of pocket expenses for you.

I had to laugh when you mentioned your copays on drugs. We DO have drug coverage at $12/$35, but it was really funny that yesterday, my husband had his 4 prescriptions filled at Target for $4.00 each! The same scripts would have been $12.00 ea. if we had used the drug coverage. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?????

[reformedrethug]

28. Oh and I forgot one other thing

If you dont use the full $3K the balance left carries over, so if you have a good year with just a few Dr's visits you could have a nice amount in the bank so to speak if something WOULD happen.

I agree on the drug issue, also, I have a VERY hard time sleeping at night. If I am lucky I get 4 hours or so of sleep a night and I have tried herbal/natural sleep aids to no avail, tried ambien and I had amnesia with it. My wife works 3rd shift and she calls me when I head to bed and when I wsa on the ambien there was several nights that I thought she did not call and when I asked her about it she said I sounded like I was drunk, etc... I tried Lunesta and that works awesome BUT the drug plan does not cover it so for a 30 day supply was like 140.00, I get samples every couple of weeks when I get to the point that I am not sleeping at all.

[rurallib]

17. I know a conservative republican who caucused for Obama

because he had to buy his own health insurance a couple years ago. Suddenly he became a universal health care advocate. He has a 'pre-existing condition' that is not covered.

[LiberalArkie]

18. You are correct, but tell them that they can still have their own personal insurance

to cover things not included in national health. That is the way it is in most places. The well to do have the extra insurance so they can go when they want and see who they want.


They like that idea.

[Ian David]

20. There have been callers to talk radio who claimed to be uninsured but so incredibly healthy...

... that they feel like "What, me worry? What could possibly go wrong?"

I suppose they also don't believe in seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, either.

[napi21]

27. It's easy to fall into that comfort zone. I only used hospitalization

twice in my life, and could count on one hand the times I went to the Dr. THEN...when I was 63, I broke my ankle! I admit, before that happened, I too felt I was wasting $$ having to pay those damn health insurance premiums all the time too!

[alfredo]

21. One guy I know is against national healthcare, but uses the VA, Medicare

Medicaid, and SSI.

[treestar]

22. And is confident they will always have that job

It's amazing. They think it can never happen to them, they got theirs, and that's it.

Makes one have an evil desire to see adversity foisted upon them.

[Ewellian]

23. I have group health insurance,

and I work for a health insurance company...and I'm in favor of a national health plan.

[Hidden Stillness]

29. Sometimes, the One Who has the Least from this System, Fights Change the Most; Everything is Threat

With all due respect, I have never heard anyone on Medicare (or Medicaid, or Social Security)--and certainly not the older ones, who really know where these things came from and how they started--say anything against Government involvement or Government programs. They know, (the ones I have known), that the Government has saved their lives, and if not for the old-time real Democrats fighting for these things, and what little coverage there is, they would never survive anything.

I think the real problem is something more complicated, and a little harder to explain. I actually think there is more opposition to Government programs that would cover these things, from people who actually do not have coverage or protection of any kind, and therefore no understanding of what it is or how it works, than by those people who have any real contact with it. There is a kind of jealousy from people who have very little, are struggling and can't make ends meet (very common despite the snide rich people on DU), and who are very aware of any sense of anyone who "did not deserve it," "didn't work as hard as I did," etc., to getting anything "when I can't." Understandable, after all the class warfare from the profiteering, parasitic capitalist who has engineered a generation of sales-campaign propaganda pitting us against each other, so we lose our awareness of them and what they do. People struggling in this now totally unbalanced economy feel, wrongly, that any little thing the poor or sick might get, is what is hurting all the rest of the middle class and poor, rather than the free ride of the very rich and corporate.

This reminds me of a great thing that Sen. George McGovern tried to do, I think during the 1970s. Patterned after the Pell grant, which used to cover almost all expenses for poor people to go to college, and the G.I. Bill, etc., McGovern proposed a grant for poor people, that would help them with basic expenses, health, home improvements, or anything else needed, that would really help them to get ahead of the burden of debt. It was to be financed by raising the (always, eternally too-low) inheritance tax. To McGovern's completely baffled surprise, there were many ordinary middle class people who were opposed to the plan of raising the inheritance tax on the richest people in the country, an opinion that made no sense at all. "They must think they're going to win a lottery," McGovern said. This is the problem, and the great victory of the corporate propagandists: they get people who are suffering and struggling with bills and debt, to identify with rich people in an escapist fantasy, rather than taking a real and constructive approach to the thing, and getting real policies from the Government, to get the fair payments in the from of taxes from these rich parasites--something that would really help us, rather than a lifetime of only dreaming about it, and getting nothing.

Sometimes, at the base of the opposition to these programs that would help people, is the fear, from those already suffering with debt and no money, that somehow, this will come out of me. They don't understand, because they have had a lifetime of only the other claim, that they too will benefit from this thing. They have never gotten anything good from capitalism; they can't even imagine it. Sometimes, the ones who have the least and struggle the most, fight the hardest against any change, because they are already afraid, and already only barely hanging on. They buy into the lie that this will somehow "cost them more," and they haven't got it.