Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/15/get-well-soon-2.html
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He did some absolutely brilliant anthologies called Alternate Presidents, Alternate Kennedys, Alternate Warriors, etc. in the '80s and '90s – I loved them. Definitely going to have to contribute to this. And look those anthologies up, people, you won’t regret them.
“but this is an important reminder of the urgency of Medicare for All.”
He’s 77 - so I’m pretty sure he’s on Medicare. But even with it - he has these uncovered bills. Apparently - that’s the best we can do? Hit people up with co-pays etc when they’re ill & have no income coming in as they’re ill.
:sigh:
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This book is enough reason to give that man a hand.
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Last summer I helped promote a GoFundMe for game publisher Rick Loomis, who was in the same fix. A veteran, and on Medicare, but SO many unpaid bills and virtually no income. Rick unfortunately died, but the debts live on.
It is infuriating.
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There should be a god damn cap on uncovered medical expenses and co-pays
$500 tops. Unless you’re fabulously wealthy. Then $1,000.
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This and universal healthcare* are key steps, but I wonder if we’ll ever be able to fix the underlying problem of the open conspiracy between publicly-traded health insurance companies and publicly-traded medical industry conglomerates. Given how much money they can throw at Congress, I suspect like a lot of our big problems it would require the daunting prospect of comprehensive campaign finance reform measures that are more than lip-service to placate the electorate.
:sigh indeed:
*I’d prefer a more robust system than Medicare For All, but recognize it’s the best we can probably hope for in the present political climate and it’s a damn sight better than the current travesty.
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The bureaucracy required to enforce means testing probably costs more than you gain from applying it.
Since the government would be administering- they just need a feed off the IRS for gross income when processing.
The federal government published a final rule earlier in the week that will require hospitals to disclose their prices — assuming it survives the lawsuits, because the hospitals will throw everything they’ve got at it. There’s another proposed rule that will disclose all the insurance-company-negotiated rates. I’d rather it expanded Maryland’s all-payer rule to the entire US, but it’s definitely moving in the right direction. I have no idea how the current administration manages to do the right thing without having first exhausted every other option, but it does happen occasionally.
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I may be wrong, but I get the impression that “Medicare for All” is a term that universal healthcare advocates in the US use to make the idea readily understandable. It does not mean “We’re going to give everyone Medicare, with the same flaws and limitations that it currently has”.
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