The difference is, Chavez had a treatable cancer, and chose to go to Cuba out of some socialist camaraderie, rather than going someplace (right next door, and acceptably left-leaning) that actually has First World quality health care.
Actually, from what I read in the first article that Google spit out (Fox News Latino, I believe) it was because the Brazilian hospitals couldn't or wouldn't meet his stringent security requirements.
[Puts on tin foil hat]
Which makes sense; CIA gave him cancer, after all.
Um, not so much. I still owe Memorial Herman $1000 for an emergency room visit five years ago (for a muscle relaxer and that's it, not tests, no doctor, just a PA that never touched me), and have had zero phone calls, no bill collectors, and no wage garnishment. Furthermore, medical stuff doesn't go on your credit record. What happens is the costs are passed on to the insurance companies in the form of extremely inflated charges for meds and procedures.Must be a Wisconsin thing you're talking about. Never seen it in NY, NJ, Florida, or Texas.
Really dude? You don't think people ever try to collect medical bills?
/boggleAbout 11 years ago I had a run of chronic strep throat, kept getting reinfected every couple months for like a year and a half. Had to go to the emergency room once, urgent care once, and regular visits several times and I was uninsured and working part-time for just over minimum wage. All told, maybe $700 bucks.
I got bills about every week, until it went to collections then I got one every month, for the next 5 years. I finally had a good paying job and paid it off, but it was STILL a black mark on my credit rating during that time (my online bank gives you a free, monthly credit report including all outstanding debts and walks you through why your credit rating is what it is).
A good friend of mine who has lived in Washington, Wisconsin and Illinois owes about a quarter million in medical bills and late fees which she has no hopes of paying off. She can't get a job anywhere that requires a credit check because they won't hire her.
Oh, Accretive Health (a health care debt collection agency that operates in Minnesota, Michigan and Utah) paid the state of Minnesota a fine of $2.5 million for their harassment of patients INSIDE emergency rooms back in 2012, though they didn't have to admit wrong doing in that settlement.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Unfortunately, despite what some people believe nothing is actually free. In the U.S. healthcare is 100% free for people who don't have money.It's only free in the sense that you can refuse to pay for it. They still send you the bill, and they'll still go through collections to get their money, and they'll still garnish your wages if you continue to refuse to pay. Not being able to turn someone away is not the same as giving it away for free.
Heck, by this logic food is free. Just go to a restaurant and skip out on the bill!
Um, not so much. I still owe Memorial Herman $1000 for an emergency room visit five years ago (for a muscle relaxer and that's it, not tests, no doctor, just a PA that never touched me), and have had zero phone calls, no bill collectors, and no wage garnishment. Furthermore, medical stuff doesn't go on your credit record. What happens is the costs are passed on to the insurance companies in the form of extremely inflated charges for meds and procedures.
Must be a Wisconsin thing you're talking about. Never seen it in NY, NJ, Florida, or Texas.
I had a 10 dollar bill I didn't realize wasn't covered by my insurance and was sent to an old address go on my credit history. I'm in NY.
Dude s%&@ goes right to collections these days. Like after 30 days at most.
just over minimum wage. All told, maybe $700 bucks.I got bills about every week, until it went to collections then I got one every month, for the next 5 years. I finally had a good paying job and paid it off, but it was STILL a black mark on my credit rating during that time (my online bank gives you a free, monthly credit report including all outstanding debts and walks you through why your credit rating is what it is).
A good friend of mine who has lived in Washington, Wisconsin and Illinois owes about a quarter million in medical bills and late fees which she has no hopes of paying off. She can't get a job anywhere that requires a credit check because they won't hire her.
Jeezus...I guess America have the best healthcare in the world only if you can afford it
Yeah, because people who feel oppressed enough to basically swim ninety miles through shark infested waters (seriously, have you ever seen a refugee raft in person?) to taste a little opportunity and freedom are definitely not the people to ask. You should ask an unbiased source like Michael Moo...oh, wait...Moreover, getting people who have fled Cuba for Florida to be quoted in the article is really telling.Not so much as you'd think, given that (a) it's not really kosher to just pop over to Cuba to ask people there; and (b) this is probably an absurd exaggeration, but someone once told me there may be more Cubans in Miami now than in Havana anyway*.Yes, but people who've fled the Cuba regime (and their children) might not be exactly the most unbiased sources.
in that they are far from unbiased, yes.
Moreover, you're living in a fantasy land if you think there isn't a swinging business in leaving cuba. There will alwasy be the poor and disenfranchised who leave. But there are also those who aren't and leave cuba through other means.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Was just flipping through a couple pages of Counterpunch articles that I missed and ran across the following, which I didn't even read, but am posting on title alone:
The Politics of Debt Collection: Terrorized by Debt Collectors by CHARLES PEKOW
Personally, I've never been terrorized by debt collectors but that's probably because very soon after I incurred a large medical bill that I never paid back that time I was hit by a car, I also stopped paying my phone bill and they shut it off.
Problem solved.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
About Universal Healthcare in other countries like France and Japan. Do the French and Japanese pay higher taxes for universal healthcare?
Frane and Japan have universal healthcare but not single-payer healthcare, which means that people's employers and other bodies are also responsible for paying into the healthcare pot. So the individual does not necessarily pay a lot in direct taxation from their own income.
The UK has a single-payer system based around direct taxation (both from the main tax pot and a secondary tax system called National Insurance, which puts aside some of your tax against future healthcare needs and future bouts of unemployment). But even we don't pay as much as Americans do as a percentage of tax.
This is the point I was making earlier on: we pay less in direct tax and get a pretty good national health system out of it. Americans pay more but then have to pay for health insurance on top of that, and all too often the insurance companies wriggle out of paying so they then have to fork out the full cost of the treatment.
From the outside-the-US perspective, you guys look like you're getting fleeced.
Yeah, because people who feel oppressed enough to basically swim ninety miles through shark infested waters (seriously, have you ever seen a refugee raft in person?) to taste a little opportunity and freedom are definitely not the people to ask. You should ask an unbiased source like Michael Moo...oh, wait...Moreover, getting people who have fled Cuba for Florida to be quoted in the article is really telling.Not so much as you'd think, given that (a) it's not really kosher to just pop over to Cuba to ask people there; and (b) this is probably an absurd exaggeration, but someone once told me there may be more Cubans in Miami now than in Havana anyway*.Yes, but people who've fled the Cuba regime (and their children) might not be exactly the most unbiased sources.
in that they are far from unbiased, yes.
Moreover, you're living in a fantasy land if you think there isn't a swinging business in leaving cuba. There will alwasy be the poor and disenfranchised who leave. But there are also those who aren't and leave cuba through other means.
I actually had the experience of having to stay at a hospital in Cuba back in 2007. I was taking a 2-month trip through the island and contracted some sort of stomach thing that did the other thing with the thing.
The good thing about the Cuban system is that it is indeed completely free (even for a "Chilean Capitalist Traitor", as the military guy at International Police in the airport called me when he found out I was Chilean and asked me what I thought about Salvador Allende*). The bad things is that it is horribly mismanaged and extremely precarious; dirt everywhere, humid beds (if you get one; you are asked to bring your own pillows and blankets, among other things. I had to go buy mine from a nice lady in what I'm pretty sure was an illegal minimarket), patients left to their own devices left and right. I mostly recuperated out of my own volition and my desperation to get out of the sticky beds. Oh God they were so sticky.
One thing you have to consider is that there are actually two parallel systems: One the common Cubans get to see (the one described above, although patients at the hospital told me some way more horrible stories, like people being sent home without fully stitching the wounds because they had been there too long and were "hogging" the medical resources), and another were the Castro regime welcomes the Red Set (ie, important, often mediatic people that publicly proclaim far-left ideals but live lavishly). It's the latter one that's truly fantastic, but then again it's meant for the Chavez's and Maradonas' of the world, not for the average Jose.
Not to say I didn't enjoy my time in Cuba; there is a very unique thing about that country you can easily fall in love with. However, it's a disaster otherwise, which started as a well-meaning communist dictatorship (overthrowing an ill-meaning capitalist one) and eventually turned into a run-of-the-mill oligocracy. A single stroll across the streets that house members of the government tells it pretty clearly (hint: all the houses are perfectly well kept and sporting great cars, whereas the rest of Havana is crumbling down to dust and filled with antiques. But boy they take good care of those antiques).
*: My family on my mother's side owns the oldest hat factory/shop in Chile, and all presidents since the late XIX century have bought their hats there. That included Salvador Allende, who bought a truckload of hats for Fidel Castro when he was invited to Cuba; Castro himself went there to get more hats when he visited our country in the 70's. My grandfather, God rest his soul, would usually point at the TV when Fidel Castro was on and say stuff like "Look, we made that hat. You can tell because of the way the stitches on the front are aligned". Gramps was a die-hard anti-communist, but actually became a good friend of Allende.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am horribly disappointed with Obamacare.
WHERE ARE THE DEATH PANELS?!
The Republicans PROMISED us Death Panels! Get to it, guys - Grandma won't strangle herself!
The liberal media is conspiring to keep you from seeing them. Your grandmother has actually been dead for several weeks now, but they've hired an out-of-work actress to impersonate her as part of a Socialist jobs program.