Stories that Michael Moore never seems to find
Via Ed Morissey.
Juana Tejada wants to stay - and die - in Canada.
A live-in caregiver from the Philippines, the terminally ill cancer patient will be forced to leave when her work permit expires in two months, even though her period of service here as a nanny was supposed to be the gateway to permanent residency.
Tejada has twice been denied a chance to stay, however, because her illness puts a burden on the health-care system. ...
The 38-year-old came to Canada in 2003 under the federal live-in caregiver program, which grants permanent resident status to domestic workers after they complete their three-year assignments and obtain the necessary medical and criminal-record clearances.
Blackadder's Lair relates another story, this time in Oregon.
After weeks of bad news, things turned Barbara Wagner's way this week.
Last month her lung cancer, in remission for about two years, was back. After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that could slow the cancer growth and extend her life, Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn't cover it.
It would cover comfort and care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide.
Then on Monday a representative of the pharmaceutical company Genentech called Wagner and offered the medicine for free.
Anybody who does not believe that governments will always end up rationing treatment are rather naive about both bureaucracies and economics. I work in a company that has plenty of military veterans in it and many of us use the Tricare system for our health care. Since the company subsidizes the medical plans of other employees they would also refund to us the payments we made to Tricare at the end of the year. That was until last year. One Virginian senator decided to make this illegal and not allow companies to refund Tricare plan payments. The only reason to do this is to encourage military retirees to leave Tricare. There are very few companies that even do this in the first place, yet some jerk senator decided that it would be illegal for my company to reimburse us out of their own money. Tricare is of course government supplied health care which is straining under the load of caring for active duty and retired military and their dependents. Can you imagine what cost constraints they would come up with if their was national health care?
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Obama can talk all he wants about national health care but it will never happen without raises taxes to the point where we all go broke.
President Bush gave the solution which was what I've been saying for 30 years. We need to go back to the way it was when I was a youngster. Folks carried insurance for the big things. When they went to a doctor for a regular visit they just paid for it. That kept the hangnails out of the emergency room.
When people say they can go to the doctor now and it is "free" they are mistaken. Nothing is "free."
This is what we need to do: totally disconnect health care from work. Otherwise, what we have is already a quasi-socialist system.
Instead of offering insurance as a benefit, the employer could not only let an employee keep her share of the insurance premium but give to the employee what they would pay toward a plan.
Using hypothetical numbers, let's say it costs $700/month for a family plan - you pay $300, your employer puts $400 toward it. You get to keep the $300 plust the additional $400.
Now you've got $700 and an open market of insurance companies who have to be competetive for your insurance dollars.