Thursday, October 11, 2007

 

Responsible Health Care

Seeing a little of Mrs. Clinton on Keith Olberman tonight, I had to write this post concerning Halsey and Bonnie Frost and taxpayer subsidized health care. Halsey and Bonnie, with the blessing of the Democrats, trotted their son, Graeme, to read a statement to support the SCHIP health care bill.

While the story of Graeme and his sister, Gemme, is heart rending, the story of their parents is of two parents who failed, apparently refused, to do what is necessary to insure their children have ready access to needed health care and medical services when ever needed. It is a story of two parents who would rather neglect this aspect of their children's needs, and every child needs medical care at some point.

The Frosts earn "between $45,000 and $50,000 a year." according to the Baltimore Sun story linked to above. My income falls in the same range but neither of them work full-time like I do. The Frost's assets in the form of their house and other real estate is many times greater than mine. (I bought my house for $78,000 two and a half years ago and have virtually no equity.)

The Frosts can't afford health insurance. I provide health insurance for my children through my work which makes it more affordable. Certainly, one of the Frosts could work full-time for benefits if they wished. No where could I find a mention that they were handicapped or otherwise unable to work full-time. They simply choose not to.

When still married, my ex-wife and her sister owned a home health care business. The Frosts remind me of a woman that worked for my ex-wife, Nancy. Nancy had worked full-time and received company paid health insurance. When Nancy decided she wanted to work part-time she asked if she could continue to receive health insurance coverage.

Due to tax regulations, any benefit that an employee receives for which all employees are not eligible is considered taxable income. To satisfy this, Nancy received a raise to cover the cost of the insurance and related costs.

Being a newly wed at the time, Nancy soon became pregnant. (Her and her husband's combined income was probably no more than the Frost's.) When her daughter was born the daughter had severe lesions in the brain. The doctor told Nancy's husband not to expect his daughter to be alive the next day. The baby was sent to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, one of the best.

Miraculously, the baby was still alive the next day and ended up spending 3 months in the hospital before being released. Medical bills were through the roof. But because this young couple in their mid-twenties exercised responsible parenting from before their child's birth, their out of pocket expenses were easily managed.

Because young brains can often adapt, Nancy's daughter was pronounced a "normal" child by the age of 2. Now, at about 15 years old, the daughter plays basketball, other sports, does well in school and is normal in every way.

I could go on with numerous anecdotes about parents that love their kids enough to actually put forth the effort and take the responsibility to make sure their kids get the care they need when they need it. But, the Democrats saw fit to bring forth parents that, by every account I've read, some sympathetic to the Frosts and some not, have low motivation, under achieve and aren't willing to sacrifice, sweat, and bleed to make sure their children have what they need.

The one thing kids need most is not fancy schools, taxpayer subsidized health care, or welfare programs expanding into the middle class. What kids need are parents that love and care for them. When kids see you working, sacrificing, struggling, and sweating for them, they know you love them. They know you care for them. That's not what they see when they see you whining that taxpayers should pay your doctor bills because you don't want to work that hard or long.

A commenter here mentions the "the infantilization of the populace..." Halsey and Bonnie Frost provide a good example of two adults with the Peter Pan Syndrome refusing to accept adult responsibilities and passing the responsibilities off to society. The left is so desperate they will latch onto anything to gain greater power.

Which brings me back to Mrs. Clinton who said she strongly disapproved of the attacks on the Frosts. For beginners, it was stupid to bring forth the Frosts as an example. I suppose the left believes they should be able to display anyone for a cause and we all should all bow down in praise without a moment of thought.

I don't trust the government to provide although Ohio Senator Brown told me he does in an email.
I support legislation that would establish a single payer coverage system modeled after Medicare. This popular public program currently provides health coverage to all seniors and has significantly lower administrative costs than private health insurance. Whether the measure is cost, access, or quality, our nation would be better off establishing a single payer system such as Medicare than continuing to rely on an uneven patchwork of public and private health insurance systems.
If we move towards Medicare for all will we still have the access and quality we have now? Canadians don't. In my observation there is nothing the government can't make worse.

How long will it take before the government administered, taxpayer funded health care system becomes a network for the government to spy on us. Doctors will interrogate kids to uncover our use of alcohol, tobacco, drugs and other undesirable activities. How long will it take them to analyze our blood samples for drugs, nicotine, etc. All this leftist "compassion" keeps bringing us closer and closer to a totalitarian police state.

Mrs. Clinton wants a plan that eliminates the Bush tax cuts thus increasing costs for everyone.
To help pay for the plan, Clinton would also eliminate the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 and limit the amount employers can exclude from taxes for health care benefits paid for those making over $250,000.
Will we really save money or just re-arrange the costs? Why won't any of these power mongers endorse tax deductions for all health care costs? Is it because they want control and power? Do you want to be under their thumb? Remember, with a "single payer coverage system" you can't switch insurance companies for better service or coverage. You're stuck with what the power mongers will give you. You can bet they will look after themselves the same way they did with Social Security. They don't have it. They have something better for themselves.

It's time for more adults to become adults and take responsibility for themselves and their children, if any. Remember Aesop's Fable of the dog and the wolf - Moral: Better starve free than be a fat slave.

Comments:
mmm, yeah. My ex and I once sold the house and moved in with the MIL to pay for the kids med bills when the insurance wouldn't cover care. [Hyper Allergic in the early 90's/worthless United Healtcare]...
and that was on one person's salary since my wife at the time decided to stay home and raise the kid. Imagine my surprise. Anyhow, WHILE I can empathise with this family, because all manner of strange things happen to families, You would think they would have known better than to get in the middle of a political thing like this. If nothing else politicians have allegiences to only themselves, and any civie should bear that in mind.
 
You would think they would have known better than to get in the middle of a political thing like this.

At the least!!

I can come up with almost endless examples of people I know or have known that, like you, managed to fulfill their responsibilities as parents by getting and paying for needed medical care for their children.

I am not without some empathy for them also but their lack of foresight and preparation of lifes certainties is amazing. If you have a child or children, they will need more than the routine shots and check ups at some point. Two of my four children had to be hospitalized at some point.
 
That sounds like a pretty bad example to roll out. For just the reasons you stated. Such arguments are too easily dismissed. Had she come down to, say, a large Southern city with some serious healthcare delivery issues and a terribly impoverished population, and showed, for example, some little innocent children who have, through no fault of their own, ended up without any health care coverage save charity and whatever care can be underwritten by taxpayers anyway, there may be a better example.

But I don't know any place like that...

I do have an issue with tax code being written so that only full time folks can get insurance (this is not the case in all places) - I mean, lets fix the easy stuff first and tweak the tax code so businesses can better take care of employees.

I know many young folks who choose to go uninsured, and pay for doctor's visits out of pocket. It sucks, but it ends up being cheaper for them than having actual insurance. Hell, my deductable has been so high and my benefits so coplicated through my work insurance that insurance hasn't had to pay for much on my behalf in years. But they still make their money from me.

I could stop paying all that money by not having kids, and getting a tatoo on my chest that says "morphine only, please, do not rescue."

So I understand the frustration with our current healthcare system: as my folks were very responsible and I've been very responsible but it doesn't seem to matter.
 
The healthcare system is actually pretty good. It's the health insurance and paying for healthcare that's a mess to try to be more specific on my part.

I had my first child in 1971. Health insurance was cheap and easy to get. Doctor and hospital charges were low also. I paid $18.61 out of pocket for pre-natal care, delivery, hospital charges, etc. Now my deductible is $25 for any doctor's visit.

I know some of the increased cost is due to the cost of technological advances such as ultrasounds and other tests. But, I can't understand how costs got to where they are. I think it's a combination of factors, some of which I'm not aware of.

Two I suspect strongly are the proliferation of medical liability suits and government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. When working at a nursing home, I found that Medicaid and Medicare set payment levels that they'll pay plus they won't allow anyone else to pay less or the facility can't receive payments from them. There are also a lot of administrative costs for medical facilities associated with the programs.

Hopefully we can find some middle ground that improves efficiency and lowers cost without putting the government in complete charge.
 
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