A Health Care System I Won't Miss

67 year old American with health insurance needs a new hip. Insurance won't pay, because his old hip deteriorated due to an old sports injury, thus considered a pre-existing condition.

So he asks around. "How much will this cost me?"

$13,000 for the hip
$65,000 for the hospital
Unknown for the surgeon

Basically something approaching $100,000.

So he goes to Belgium and gets it done at a private hospital outside Brussels. Cost? $13,660.

That price included not only a hip joint, made by Warsaw-based Zimmer Holdings, but also all doctors’ fees, operating room charges, crutches, medicine, a hospital room for five days, a week in rehab and a round-trip ticket from America.

What the world under Obamacare will look like remains to be seen. But I will not miss the health care system we're leaving behind.

Good lord Chillcoot! What is it with you and this all consuming love affair you have with this loser of a President Obama? When are you going to wake up to the fact that he is no better than any of the rest? Make a list of the promises he made before the first election and see how many he has kept. Here, let me help you get started. Guantanamo.

Everyone knows the present healthcare system here is a train wreck. His answer is not the answer though. This country cannot afford to pay for it. Period. Not now and certainly not down the road. Ask anyone who has an insurance policy ( oh say , like me ) how much their premiums have gone up because of his great and wonderful new program. You think all these new benefits and coverages are going to pay for themselves? You think the government or the insurance companies are going to pay for them?

Sure, we need reform. Few would refute that. But your all knowing, great and powerful Obama has not stumbled across the Golden Answer! A good place to start might be with the drug companies and the high prices hospitals get away with charging.

But most of all please, please at least lighten up a little with this constant and blatant man-love affair you have going on with Obama. Its embarrassing to see. He's just not all that! Besides, he's married.

Now, let me see some charts and graphs for this.

nemisis- Well said. Bravo!

I AGREE WITH YOU NEMESIS.

I think the moral to that story is it's time to start outsourcing major medical procedures to qualified foreign hospitals and force US medical providers to compete on price and quality. I don't think Obamacare does that, does it?

According to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing Obamacare would cost billions.



And the deficit is down massively since Bush's last budget. And corporate profits were record highs in 2012 and 2011. So yeah, we can afford it.

And nemesis, when you claim your premiums when up because of Obamacare, I don't believe you. If you have evidence to back up any of your claims, produce it.

The New York Times had an article just yesterday on this:

In need of a new hip, but priced out of the U.S.

He has insurance but they wouldn't cover it because it was a "pre-existing condition" stemming from an old sports injury. The estimated cost was going to run around $100,000 here so he had it done in Belgium for less than $14,000, (2007 dollars).

Hi nemesis. So wonderful of you to give me this opportunity. Trouble is, listing all of President Obama's accomplishments is a lot of work, and I'm only one person.

I'll point you to the work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact, which has 13 pages of campaign promises that President Obama has kept.

President Barack Obama has fulfilled or made substantial progress on 73 percent of the 508 promises he made when he ran for president in 2008.



Here is page 1 of their impressive 13 page list:

Extend child tax credits and marriage-penalty fixes.

Create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processes

Create an international tax haven watch list

Increase minority access to capital

Require economic justification for tax changes

Implement "Women Owned Business" contracting program

Change standards for determining broadband access

Create a consumer-friendly credit card rating system

Establish a credit card bill of rights

Expand loan programs for small businesses

Extend the Bush tax cuts for lower incomes

Phase out exemptions and deductions for higher earners

Extend and index the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch

Close the "doughnut hole" in Medicare prescription drug plan

Provide easy-to-understand comparisons of the Medicare prescription drug plans

Expand the Senior Corps volunteer program

Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions

Give tax credits to those who need help to pay health premiums

Require large employers to contribute to a national health plan

Require children to have health insurance coverage



I don't want to make this post too long, and I'm sure you're quite busy, so I'll let you go ahead and enjoy pages 2-13 at your leisure.

In the meantime, since I started this thread to discuss health care, can anyone defend the circumstances that the American who got the hip replacement in Belgium faced? Seems to me that a system that produced that result is really bad.

I don't think Obama care is the solution, but for a different reason than most. Those CBO studies also showed the cheapest cost would be some sort of public option like Medicare for all. I think the retention of the private insurance companies is a mistake they serve no purpose in modern health care delivery and the U.S. Government doesn't need to essentially prop up an antiquated system that the rest of the world has abandoned.