Colonoscopies quite frequently involve anesthesia or full sedation. George W. Bush quite publicly signed the power of the Presidency over to Dick Cheney while doctors put him under for one such spelunking expedition.
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This is not true. Your friend may be confused about the IRS Form 1095, which documents the amount paid by you and your employer, but none of it is taxable. Yet, anyway. The 1095 is mandated by the ACA so people have some idea exactly what their healthcare costs actually are, and to prove to the IRS that the person is covered, and so does not have to pay the uninsured penalty.
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Does anyone else wonder if we could just rename the ACA as “TrumpCare”?
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Because the health care/pharma industry wouldn’t be able to go back to the obcene profits they before the ACA.
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The libertarian death cult that runs the GOP wouldn’t be able to abuse their employees with the threat of employer-provided health insurance.
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The ACA was only ever an unstable middle ground between employer-provided and single-payer. Apparently we need to make America 1948 again.
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It was a colonoscopy as an outpatient in Norway and it was quite uncomfortable but wouldn’t have said it was any more painful than some dentistry (UK dentistry I mean, all my dentistry for the last 30 years has been in Norway, next to painless, and mostly without anaesthetic).
Interesting link for an all in one price including polyp removal and anaesthesia. That doesn’t seem like such an outrageous price, high but not crazy. But it should definitely be covered by insurance.
On the subject of anaesthesia: it seems that it is routinely used in the US for many more procedures than it would be in northern Europe.
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Not Socialism when Trump says it?
“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Mr. Trump said. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.”
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Thinking about this some more, is it a tragedy-of-the-commons (TOTC) kind of situation? As in, if one insurance company provided free or heavily subsidised preventative healthcare (not just saying they will then dicking around when it comes time to pay out), would that put them at a comparative competitive disadvantage c.f. other companys which don’t.
But I can’t figure out how it could be a TOTC. If Company A provides preventative healthcare services, they will have to pay for that, but they also catch potentially serious illnesses early and can treat them while they’re still relatively inexpensive, significantly reducing costs overall (a well known and proven phenomenon in every country with single-payer health care). Company B doesn’t pay for the preventative stuff, but when clients do get sick they’re suddenly on the hook for some very expensive bills. It doesn’t seem likely that patients will transfer between A and B, because A’s premiums are likely cheaper, and anyway pre-existing conditions wouldn’t be covered when you transfer (or will be soon once the GOP has their way).
Am I missing a mechanisim here? Or is it really just phenomenally stupid short-sighted thinking?
Of course, the assumption is that companys will pay out for ANY care, but presumably they must pay for at least some operations and stuff.
So that could be an interesting ethical dilemma. If a monstrous authoritarian like Trump proposes an actual workable plan for universal health care do we progressives have a moral duty to support it or oppose it?
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If it works I am not restrained by my pride and will fully support it.
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Broken clock and all.
Supporting one good thing does not compel you to support all the stupid stuff. It also doesn’t compel you to support the stupid stuff baked into the good thing.
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Do you know of anyone else who has been able to make that argument successfully so far, regarding the US, I mean?
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I guess I could get behind the “hang* the Nazis, keep the Volkswagen” approach.
*Figuratively anyway, still not a fan of capital punishment
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I’ll be shocked (in a good way) if he doesn’t end up having to walk that one back while simultaneously pretending he never adopted that position in the first place
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Big if, but yes.
It’s the policy that matters, surely?
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Fixed that for you. 
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Precisely. Keep the farfegnugen. Throw out the rest.
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We’re going to have insurance for everybody*
*that can afford it
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The biggest benefit I get from insurance (aside from knowing that if I get seriously ill I can get care and covered) is that I pay the negotiated price (between doctor and insurance company) for everything that falls under my deductible. It’s weird stuff in the explanation of benefits what says
Normal cost: $5000
Negotiated cost: $1300
You pay: $1300
Insurance company saved me $3700 and didn’t have to shell out a penny. And yet I still feel like I got screwed.
I think we (the US) needs to stop thinking of health insurance as something that’s going to save us from ever spending more than $100 at a doctor. Edit: meaning – we still have to cover all the little things – let insurance be there for the big things. I dunno. Maybe.
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Redefine 'everybody’
Redefine 'citizen’
PROFIT!
Q.E.D.
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No, and I’m not sure it’s going to work. Though they are taking it very seriously. As scared as most thinking Americans are of Trump, they’re terrified of him over here. We as Americans are used to politicians saying shit and not doing anything, but they haven’t seen that here. They hear Trump sucking up to Putin and wanting to get rid of NATO, and they take those things very seriously. There are still people alive who remember Hitler and then the Red Army marching across Europe, and it’s very strong in the collective memory.
My backup plan is to apply for Irish citizenship-- I am technically eligible based on my maternal grandfather being born there, but even if I can get it, my wife and kids aren’t automatically eligible. There’s a process and it requires residency. I don’t know if other EU residency is good enough.
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One of the ways I have seen insurance companies use ACA against individuals is that they technically have one or a few policies available in a given state, so they fulfill the letter of the law, but those policies cover NOTHING involving any of the main hospitals or their staff. So sure, I can get insurance, but I would have to go to a clinic I’ve never heard of, in a neighborhood I’ve never heard of (and isn’t in a great part of town), or I could go to a stand-alone hospital connected with a reputable major medical center, but it requires a drive of at least 1 1/2 hours each way outside of my city, just to get a check-up. (For 2017, I’ve chosen the latter option…and am trying to find a PCP out there who will “refer” me to my actual doctors in town, so that they’re covered.)
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