Camden Commentary: Hang in there , America: A conservative majority is coming soon!

Monday, March 22, 2010

Hang in there , America: A conservative majority is coming soon!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/22/health.care.main/index.html?hpt=T1

7 comments:

Jay Moreno said...: Laugh while you can, Comrade. You will not be laughing one night in November!; March 22, 2010 at 10:28 AM
Anonymous said...: Most Americans see the health care vote as a reining in of the obscene profits of the insurance companies and coverage for Americans that badly need it.

If the conservatives had really wanted health care reform, it would have been done 8 years ago. All they were interested in was keeping the profits of big business and by extension their donations way up, and so what if 45,000 Americans without insurance died each year.

In any event it is not something for anyone to be laughing about.; March 23, 2010 at 7:35 AM
Jay Moreno said...: I'm sure that 45,000 Americans without a Rolls Royce also died last year. Your point?

Have you ever seen any uninsured folks with, say, terminal cancer, laying about in the streets dying?
No, you haven't, because they are all in hospitals or hospices being paid for by Medicaid - i.e., by the INSURED tax payers.

Ah, but Medicaid does not pay the true cost of the care. Who does, the INSURED tax payers again. How? Simple: the in-hospital $25.00 aspirin tablet billed to the INSURED, tax-paying patients is the way hospitals recoup their losses.

So, you see, there really was no such thing as truly uninsured patients in this country. There were just those those who did not pay for it and those who paid for their own care plus the care of the indigent.; March 23, 2010 at 7:52 AM
hannah said...: A Rolls Royce is not designed to prevent the deaths of people in the prime of life. Indeed, you might say that, like all other automotive vehicles, a Rolls is a potential death trap for the unwary.

Preventing the deaths of people in the prime of life is a benefit to society to the extent that all the effort to rear, nurture and educate them is not wasted.
From a social perspective, it makes more sense to let the elderly who have served their use expire with little or no fan-fare.; March 23, 2010 at 9:37 AM
Jay Moreno said...: How old are you?

By the way, did you say that you have your own blog? If so, please give me the link.; March 23, 2010 at 9:43 AM
Anonymous said...: Jay,

A simple question so that we will know the personal source of your viewpoint on health. I know that you have had very sizable medical bills due to your unfortunate illness. Unless you have a secret family fortune that I don't know about, I assume that your medial bills, past and ongoing, and your home-care is paid for by some form of insurance or entitlement. If you don't mind my asking, what is your insurance situation?

Just so you know where I am coming from, I have Medicare and BCBS. All of my medical bills, excluding dental and certain elected procedures, are paid for. My prescription plan is not the best but it is very adequate. I like my insurance situation and would not like to lose it.; March 23, 2010 at 2:50 PM
Jay Moreno said...: Because I had been a licensed property and casualty agent for 20 years and worked in the Insurance and Risk Management Division of the City of Jacksonville for a while, I knew that even though the proximate cause of my GBS was ingesting tainted food, the fact that I ate all of my meals for the nearly two weeks preceeding the onset on a business trip over 50 miles from home on the company's nickel, it was Workers' Comp compensable.

The company tried to contest it but I kew I was on firm ground. Once their carrier knew that I knew, they covered the illness. Of the estimated $2.5 million, my cost has been ZERO.

My other medical needs (diabetes -are covered by Medicare. Not Medicaid, but Medicare which I paid premiums on for 40 years of my working life. Of course, I still have deductibles and co-pays and my Part D prescription coverage hits the "doughnut hole" about 7 months into each year. Averaged over the year, my out-of pocket is only about $200.00 per month, which is manageable. Of course, that is in addition to the money they take out of my Social Security check every month to pay for Medicare Pars B and D, respectively. I think that now comes to about $140.00 per month.

As a side note, no, I'm not thinking about running for county commisioner from District 4 just for the additional health insurance. However, as luck would have it, it turns out that I (or anyone on Social Security) can earn up to $980.00 per month without losing any of my (their) Social Security benefits. Now, if memory serves me, the monthly pay for a commissioner (to start - it goes up like maybe $100.00 per month when you become a "certified commissioner) is about $1,100. Well, it turns out that the premiums for health insurance are "before tax" premiuums (i.e., they would reduce my monthly taxable income by a hundred and something.) Now, when you take that plus the money I can legitimately exclude for trips to Woodbine, my monthly net as a commissioner would fall below $980.00.

The net result is that that would bring my total income (SSDI and county commission net) to about $2,080.00. That's just about exactly what I need to live on every month ($100 per week for my hosuekeeper plus approx $700.00 anually for her Social Security (100%) and unemployment insurance) without depleting what's left of my settlement from Workers' Comp.

So, in a nut shell, not only is it my belief that I am well qualified and well suited to the "job," but the "job" is well suited to my combination of intellectual abilities and physical disabilities.

But even if I were perfectly able, all things being equal, I probably would have run at this point in my life anyway - in spite of the fact that not one living soul has enouraged me to so far.; March 23, 2010 at 6:08 PM