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Originally posted by: Chilcoot
I am very glad to hear that you have beaten this cancer.
I am glad you have been able to enjoy the benefits of good health care and quality insurance, and this fruit of decades of hard, expensive research, much of it funded through tax dollars. In the US alone, federal support for cancer research last year was over $5 billion, perhaps a huge sum but still down 30% in real dollars since 2003.
Again, I am very glad to hear of your success. A lot of people invested a lot of time, money, and failure in achieving your result. Perhaps this experience will help you discover joy in finding ways for others to achieve similar successes with their health.
DonDiego thanks Chilcoot for his positive response to DonDiego's conquest of cancer.
He had intended this as a joyful post, a report of a successful medical battle. And he hadn't expected any politically oriented posts. But, . . . DonDiego'll play along.
For the record:
DonDiego is pleased to have had care from competent physicians, urologists, oncologists, radiation-technicians, nurses and all other support personnel employed in for-profit enterprises. For-profit operations keep employees on their toes. Some day he supposes, when The Government has more significant direct control of facilities and costs, all medical services will look a lot like what one sees in a Veterans Administration facility.
DonDiego is pleased to report that although if he had had the option to opt out of Medicare and avoid the tax on his income he would have done so; but there was no such option. So he has paid the tax throughout his entire working lifetime, excepting 2 years of part-time employment when he was in high school.
In fact, Medicare is his primary insurance, so it paid for almost everything. And it may well be that this single malignant incident has already cost the Medicare Trust Funds more than young DonDiego contributed over his lifetime. (If not, the next incident will exceed his payments for sure.)
DonDiego thanks all present workers for paying for most of his medical care.
(DonDiego is glad he became ill early enough to reap some benefits.)
(It'll be interesting when the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund runs out of assets, presently estimated in 2033. And that date is posited based upon reductions in Medicare payments to hospitals mandated by The Obamacare:
* Hospital payments for both Medicare and Medicaid will be 38% lower than the amounts paid by private health insurers by the year 2030.
* Eventually, payment reductions to hospitals will mean they are paid 59 percent less by Medicare and Medicaid than by private health insurers.
Somebody's gonna have to pony-up shitpotsfull of money. Pr'bly people still paying for insurance, . . . poor bastards.
DonDiego is really glad he became ill early enough to reap some benefits.)
DonDiego still carries a family policy, to cover his young wife and himself; she deserves insurance too! And this insurance kicks in to cover what Medicare doesn't. So on a medical adventure like that of poor old DonDiego this last year, it pays something too. Don Diego hasn't bothered to study exactly what he spent personally, . . . beyond his deductible it may have been $0, but in any case, it is small enough that he hasn't noticed it at all.
DonDiego thanks all those members of his insurance company for paying for some of his medical care.
(Presumably the funds of this for-profit insurer will be maintained over the years to cover expenses by appropriate adjustments to coverages and premiums. So it'll never run out of assets, . . . so long as private insurers are permitted to exist.)
DonDiego already finds joy in aiding others in success with their health; he does so by paying his insurance premiums and trusting that competent actuaries can maintain the profitability of the company. That's how insurance works.
(DonDiego supposes the present interventions in the debt markets by, f'rinstance the Central Banks around the world, are making the actuaries' task more difficult; decent-yielding safe Government bonds are hard to find. It's tough for DonDiego to see how present low-interest rates can be maintained forever. And if markets were to fall unexpectedly and significantly even private insurers funds could be damaged.)
DonDiego wishes Chilcoot the same good fortune he has experienced in any future medical adventures.
Ahh, . . . . . . Life is Good.
