I Wonder if Wanking is Covered?

Because there sure are a lot of tossers in the comments section of this article about Obamacare who could file a claim.

Atrios Explains It All....

Risk Aversion Theory and how a decent program offering government-backed universal health care is the key to helping all our dreams come true:

"Risk Aversion" is about people preferring certainty to risk. You'll take a smaller lower return if it's certain over a somewhat higher average expected return if there's a bit of a gamble involved. Basically, you'd prefer an investment providing a certain return of 3% over one with a 50% chance of 2% and a 50% chance of 4%. And we're not just talking about casino gambling or the stock market, we're talking about basic life choices. You can take that salaried job with health insurance, assuming such things exist anymore, or you can try to start a business, gambling that it will succeed reasonably well and you won't get cancer before you can afford the unaffordable health insurance. If our safety net had a fewer holes, and perhaps more importantly, if we didn't have to worry about health insurance, we could all spend our 20s trying to make it as rock stars, like everyone in Canada does. It isn't risk aversion that's the problem, it's risk. It's the fact that if you take the risky route, there's a non-trivial probability that you are well and truly fucked forever.

"Greatest Citizen in Canadian History"

Tommy Douglas. Not a hockey player, nor a Mountie.

What'd he do? Only this.

One Minute of Total Common Sense

Here we have the REPUBLICAN Attorney General of the state of Louisiana making the most cogent and succinct argument yet for a single-payer government-sponsored health care system.

KEYES: You don’t think the subsidies for low-income people are going to be helpful?

CALDWELL: No, no. The worst thing you can do is give it to an insurance company. I want to make my point. All insurance companies are controlled in their particular state. If you have a hurricane come up the east coast, the first one that’s going to leave you when they gotta pay too many claims is an insurance company. Insurance companies are the absolute worst people to handle this kind of business. I trust the government more than insurance companies. If the government wants to put forth a policy where they will pay for everything and you won’t have to go through an insurance policy, that’d be a whole lot better.

The Best Health Care System in the World

Regular readers of this trashy blog will recall that last year this lowly blogger's health insurance premiums (through Anthem Blue Cross, natch) were raised 34% in one fell swoop. I bumped the annual deductible up from $2500 to $5000 to offset the change, but as I stand at the precipice of my sixth decade on this big blue marble (yes, it's true!), and facing all the usual expenses of becoming an old fart, they've gone and jacked my monthly up another 12.8%. And that's before the arrival of the actual 50th birthday!

So now, in terms of raw dollars, I will have to pay $9000 out of pocket annually for coverage ($4000 if I never see a doctor) before Anthem will even kick in one thin dime. I'd hate to think what's facing a family with 4 or 5 or 6 kids.

That's thegreatestfuckinghealthcaresystemontheplanet.

America the Exception: What's Wrong with Our Health Care System...Exhibit A

Local couple has full health insurance but is still reduced to holding a fundraiser to cover costs of a complicated pregnancy and postnatal surgery on their newborn baby.

All You Need to Know About US Health Care

...is that it was the "gold-plated flatware" that ultimately drove Wendell Potter out of his ivory tower. Here he recounts the tale of visiting a disaster relief site in rural Virginia:

I had no idea what to expect, but when I walked through the fairground gates, it was just absolutely overwhelming … [P]eople … were lined up in the rain by the hundreds … and they were being treated in animal stalls … They also had set up tents. It looked like a MASH unit. It looked like this could have been something that was happening in a war-torn country, and war refugees were there to get their care [...]

It was just unbelievable, and it just drove it home to me, maybe for the first time, that we were talking about real human beings and not just numbers [...]

[T]wo or three weeks later, I was [flying to a meeting] on one of the corporate jets … I was served my lunch on a gold-rimmed plate, was given gold-plated flatware [...]
it just dawned on me, for the first time, that someone’s premiums … were paying for my lunch on gold-trimmed china [...]

I thought about those men and women that I had seen in Wise County … not having any idea that this is the way that insurance executives lived and how premium dollars were being spent … I had to leave [...]

If Diogenes had found Potter he could have put down his lamp.

Long Range: The Path Toward True Gov't Health Care

The tiny state of Vermont is 9/10ths of the way toward implementing a single-payer health care system. The measure passed the legislature today by a 94-49 vote. Once this is done, think about how many businesses will be enticed to move to the Green Mountain State solely because they'll no longer have to pay for their employees' health insurance.

Now this: The state of California is also considering a single-payer plan. Makes sense for business, makes sense for health care professionasls, makes sense for you and me.

Once the Golden State goes public, you can kiss your private health insurance industry goodbye.

The Onion: Closer to the Real News

Once again the Onion comes closer to reporting the real news than any "real" media outlet....Why is Mitt Romney unelectable to Republicans? Because he tried to help sick people obtain health insurance.

BELMONT, MA—Though Mitt Romney is considered to be a frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, the national spotlight has forced him to repeatedly confront a major skeleton in his political closet: that as governor of Massachusetts he once tried to help poor, uninsured sick people.[emphasis added.]

Unsustainable Health Care System

The reality of the health care/health insurance situation in this country is that it remains on an unsustainable course unless and until we tear it down to the foundation and rebuild. I just received notice of yet another increase in my health insurance premium -- this time a 13.8% boost -- that is compounded by an 18% increase in my annual deductible. This plan was one of the notorious Blue Cross plans that saw a 39% increase just last year. Meanwhile, the CEO of the company offering me this wonderful coverage made $13,108,198 in 2009. Thank you Wellpoint/Anthem/Blue Cross!

Someone please tell me again why this for-profit system is preferable to a government-backed, single-payer health care? My annual outlay, including deductible -- before ever stepping foot in a hospital or doctor's office -- is now over $10,000 per year.

Again with the Emergency Room Thing?

George W. Bush once famously noted that everyone in America had access to health care thanks to the existence of emergency rooms in hospitals around the country. He was widely lampooned and ridiculed for that Grey Poupon moment. Mississippi Govenror Haley Barbour apparently didn't get the memo:

"...there's nobody in Mississippi who does not have access to health care. One of the great problems in the conversation is the misimpression that if you don't have insurance, you don't get health care." [A] Barbour aide clarified that Barbour was talking about "emergency room procedures."

18% of Mississippi residents have no health insurance at all.

Elderly Private Insurance Plan Selection Night

Ted Rall created this classic cartoon back in 2005, when the George W. Bush and the Republicans were all gung-ho for privatizing Social Security, ostensibly giving "consumers" more "choices" in managing their "retirement plans."

Now that the current crop of Republicans are pushing to scrap Medicare and instead give vouchers to 75-year-olds so they can explore their options in the private insurance market, I think the message behind the comic is still operative.

Republican Medicare Reform Plan

LA Times Investigates Health Care Billing

 
David Lazarus of the LA Times takes a dive into the deep end of the pool: The incomprehensible world of health care billing.

Weiner Likens HCR Debate to Drinking Game

Health Care: WTF?

I think I've posted this one before, but what does it say about our health care system when you can get a flu shot cheaper by flashing your Triple-A card than you can by flashing your health insurance card?

Lou Grant, BAM.

Triple-A Discount

This guy went in for a flu shot and found out the discount on his Automobile Club car insurance paid better than the medical insurance he got for his health care needs. In fact, his medical insurance didn't cover a flu shot at all.

You Can Fight City Hall

Incredible as it may seem, it appears that health insurance behemoth Anthem/Blue Cross has backed down from its plan to increase premiums by as much as 39%.

California health insurer Anthem Blue Cross is withdrawing rate increases of as much as 39% for thousands of California policyholders after state insurance regulators rejected the proposals, officials announced Thursday.

I guess that's why they call it regulation. My proposed increase was set to be 34%.

The Barter System

You may have heard the startling news that Harry Reid's Republican opponent in the Nevada Senate race recently backed the barter system as an alternative means for patients to fight the high cost of medical care. We're not making this up. Well, a new website has devised a hilarious "chicken-to-medical-care" cost converter that allows you to figure out just how many chickens that bypass surgery is going to set you back. Check it out here.