Oh hey, it's Gallup!

Anyone who thinks the US has a decent health-care system has never had to deal with a serious illness.

Just wait until you little shiats turn 50, you'll see what health care costs REALLY are.

"Gallup" has become a verb meaning "to completely destroy your own credibility"

I'm healthy and paying $300 a month for a high deductible plan - I can't say I'm thrilled. I'm definitely looking forward to the exchanges opening up to see if I can't get a better deal.

I have great health insurance, but if you have to take a prescription for anything - that's where they get you these days. I got a cold and a week of pills was $140 AFTER the insurance discount.

Meanwhile, I had a hernia and the whole surgery to fix it, including pre- and post-op office visits, was $35.

Republican logic: I would rather $1,200 a month for me and my family than pay half that if the gubbermint is runnin it!

/still not sure why we need insurance companies at all

YOUR Government pays YOUR doctor. Simple

Lsherm: I have great health insurance, but if you have to take a prescription for anything - that's where they get you these days. I got a cold and a week of pills was $140 AFTER the insurance discount.

Yeah, that's pretty expensive for what are for all practical purposes placebos.

t3knomanser: Anyone who thinks the US has a decent health-care system has never had to deal with a serious illness.

Does spina bifida qualify?

They wouldn't be satisfied with their health care costs if they knew what people in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, or really any other developed country on the entire planet were paying for their health care. I guarantee it.

Hey Subby, does the NICU count? Just shy of $1M billed for a $150 copay. Worked for me and mine.

I have great coverage and a medical plan with a $3000 annual deductible. My employer kicks in $3000 a year into an HSA. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want good benefits, get a big boy job.

Serious Black: They wouldn't be satisfied with their health care costs if they knew what people in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, or really any other developed country on the entire planet were paying for their health care. I guarantee it.

It's like a long running Elephants turd.

My husband works in a NYC school. I am disabled. We are very happy with the cost of our healthcare. I have had seven operations and take twenty pills a day. If they change it, I will not be able to afford my meds, then what do I do. Should I wait in my bed to dye?

daffy: Should I wait in my bed to dye

At least lay down some newspaper.

Honest Bender: I have great coverage and a medical plan with a $3000 annual deductible. My employer kicks in $3000 a year into an HSA. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want good benefits, get a big boy job.

Because only the well-to-do deserve good healthcare.

Honest Bender: I have great coverage and a medical plan with a $3000 annual deductible. My employer kicks in $3000 a year into an HSA. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want good benefits, get a big boy job.

In other words, about $3,000 of your salary is directed into an HSA instead on your behalf. Plus the employer portion of the premium.

Honest Bender: I have great coverage and a medical plan with a $3000 annual deductible. My employer kicks in $3000 a year into an HSA. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want good benefits, get a big boy job.

Can women get those too or just Cool Bros?

Kind of like how you need a job while applying for other positions; once you're out of the loop, you may as well toke up/bottom up and watch it all burn.

Yeah, just don't go through a windshield while you're waiting for your coverage to kick in.

I went to my physical therapist yesterday for a persistent foot problem. She asked if I had seen a podiatrist as such a visit would be covered by insurance. I said "No, My deductible is $1250, so if it is not catastrophic it is out of pocket.". She laughed and said "Me too!" and went on to solve my problem.

The biggest problem roadblock to healthcare reform, or problem with attitudes towards healthcare, is that healthy people don't think rationally about health.

There's a pretty large subconscious mindset of "well, I'm healthy, so things must be good and if something changes, my health could change." It's not just that people haven't had to deal with the healthcare industry, but that our brains are miswired a little when it comes to health and change.

Honest Bender: I have great coverage and a medical plan with a $3000 annual deductible. My employer kicks in $3000 a year into an HSA. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want good benefits, get a big boy job.

The world needs service/food employees too... and taking one of those jobs shouldn't mean you get to die early because you wont get the drugs you need to stay alive. I understand where you're coming from, but we don't have to settle for a society in which the poor are left to die and vector diseases to everyone else... we should be better than that.

This is one of the weaknesses with healthcare reform. One of the issues that healthcare reform tries to address in the issue of the uninsured. 15% of Americans have no insurance. However, 85% have insurance and while these people may not love their insurance plans they are worried reform will make things worse for them. Known versus the unknown, they prefer the devil they know. Since 85% is more than 15% you get a majority of people who have reservations about healthcare reform.

Pfff....who needs health care when I have WebMD at my disposal.

/headache + stuffy nose = head cold
//Or face cancer....or maybe a tumor

LegacyDL: Pfff....who needs health care when I have WebMD at my disposal.

/headache + stuffy nose = head cold
//Or face cancer....or maybe a tumor

I have face cancer... getting a kick and so forth.

Honest Bender: I have great coverage and a medical plan with a $3000 annual deductible. My employer kicks in $3000 a year into an HSA. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want good benefits, get a big boy job.

26 minutes, kids.

These people will love it when they're using a beg jar on the counter of their local convenience store to pay for the consequences of serious illness/injury.

Is that REALLY the way we want fellow citizens to have to handle such crises? A beg jar dependent upon the pity of strangers?

If one big private company can get good rates/discounts on health insurance, then let's consider the entire U.S. population to be one big private company.

Honest Bender: I have great coverage and a medical plan with a $3000 annual deductible. My employer kicks in $3000 a year into an HSA. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want good benefits, get a big boy job.

And if you lose your job for whatever reason -- you took too long of a bathroom break one time, you punched your manager in the solar plexus, your company's CEO wants to buy a new Ferrari for his mistress and needs to lay off a few workers to get the bonus to pay for that -- you lose that insurance along with your job.

Luckily, you'll still be able to keep your health benefits by signing up for COBRA for the low, low price of more than half of what you'll be getting through unemployment benefits, which you'll only be able to keep while on unemployment and are ineligible for if you are employed, even if that employment is $8/hr, 30 hours/week at Walmart with no benefits of any kind apart from the paycheck itself.

Isn't it great that this country has health insurance directly tied to employment?

Someone's opinion on their country's healthcare system is pretty irrelevant unless they or someone they know has had a serious illness and therefore knows the process and the after-effects.

Perhaps that would have been a more relevant group to poll, Gallup? I suspect that the vast bulk of your pollees have zero actual knowledge of their insurance in action, beyond a pretty leaflet.

t3knomanser: Anyone who thinks the US has a decent health-care system has never had to deal with a serious illness.

I've had several serious illnesses and I've gotten great service.

Spanky_McFarksalot: Republican logic: I would rather $1,200 a month for me and my family than pay half that if the gubbermint is runnin it!

/still not sure why we need insurance companies at all

YOUR Government pays YOUR doctor. Simple

And where does this money come from that MY government would use to pay MY doctor? ME?

Serious Black: They wouldn't be satisfied with their health care costs if they knew what people in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, or really any other developed country on the entire planet were paying for their health care. I guarantee it.

They aren't paying less. They are simply paying it using taxes. Nothing is free

runwiz: This is one of the weaknesses with healthcare reform. One of the issues that healthcare reform tries to address in the issue of the uninsured. 15% of Americans have no insurance. However, 85% have insurance and while these people may not love their insurance plans they are worried reform will make things worse for them. Known versus the unknown, they prefer the devil they know. Since 85% is more than 15% you get a majority of people who have reservations about healthcare reform.

85 percent of people *think* they have health insurance... until the ACA, insurers were allowed to have lifetime caps that were easily exceeded if you had a bad accident or illness that caused you to spend a month in the hospital. They thought they had insurance, even though they had caps of 100k, and a MS attack hospital bill can run upwards of 400k. The problem with health insurance was the same as why many have a beef with the ACA, they have no idea what it actually does, but they think they do.

pissedoffmick: daffy: Should I wait in my bed to dye

At least lay down some newspaper.

What color?

pissedoffmick: daffy: Should I wait in my bed to dye

At least lay down some newspaper.

My husband already put heafty bags on the bed......Just in case

CujoQuarrel: Serious Black: They wouldn't be satisfied with their health care costs if they knew what people in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, or really any other developed country on the entire planet were paying for their health care. I guarantee it.

They aren't paying less. They are simply paying it using taxes. Nothing is free


Umm, they are paying less. In some cases, much, much less. One of the main reasons that full gold-plated private health insurance is so cheap in the UK is because they have to compete with the NHS, which 95% of people are perfectly satisfied.

I thought competition was a good thing?

daffy: My husband works in a NYC school. I am disabled. We are very happy with the cost of our healthcare. I have had seven operations and take twenty pills a day. If they change it, I will not be able to afford my meds, then what do I do. Should I wait in my bed to dye?

Let's ask the GOP base...

t3knomanser: Anyone who thinks the US has a decent health-care system has never had to deal with a serious illness.

I had a 3.8cm³ tumor removed from my brain in October that was putting pressure on my brain stem, hearing, vestibular and facial nerves and without treatment would ultimately have resulted in my death. I'd call that a serious illness, but I think the health care system is well beyond decent. I have no side effects from the procedure and I am out of pocket $1100 for a procedure that had a total cost of $120,000. I had many choices on possible remedies (3 different surgical approaches and cyberknife) readily available to me and the opportunity to research and choose what was the best choice for me.

Bungles: CujoQuarrel: Serious Black: They wouldn't be satisfied with their health care costs if they knew what people in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, or really any other developed country on the entire planet were paying for their health care. I guarantee it.

They aren't paying less. They are simply paying it using taxes. Nothing is free


Umm, they are paying less. In some cases, much, much less. One of the main reasons that full gold-plated private health insurance is so cheap in the UK is because they have to compete with the NHS, which 95% of people are perfectly satisfied.

I thought competition was a good thing?

Same amount of money is needed. It's just taken from you in a different way.

Don't worry Americans, soon your country will be a Socialist Paradise.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need!

Oh, yay; this thread again. Move to Canada for a few years and see how much you actually like the healthcare. Free is about the only good thing you can say about it; a lot of people on this side of the border like to gloat and glee about how fantastic the Canadian system is having never been part of it, but the truth is, you get what you pay for.

Bruce Campbell: t3knomanser: Anyone who thinks the US has a decent health-care system has never had to deal with a serious illness.

I had a 3.8cm3 tumor removed from my brain in October that was putting pressure on my brain stem, hearing, vestibular and facial nerves and without treatment would ultimately have resulted in my death. I'd call that a serious illness, but I think the health care system is well beyond decent. I have no side effects from the procedure and I am out of pocket $1100 for a procedure that had a total cost of $120,000. I had many choices on possible remedies (3 different surgical approaches and cyberknife) readily available to me and the opportunity to research and choose what was the best choice for me.



Come back in 10 years to see if you think the same when the impact of having that condition has totally bum-farked your future policy options.

CujoQuarrel: Serious Black: They wouldn't be satisfied with their health care costs if they knew what people in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, or really any other developed country on the entire planet were paying for their health care. I guarantee it.

They aren't paying less. They are simply paying it using taxes. Nothing is free

LOL. Really? You really believe that? I have land in Florida for sale if you do.

CujoQuarrel: Bungles: CujoQuarrel: Serious Black: They wouldn't be satisfied with their health care costs if they knew what people in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, or really any other developed country on the entire planet were paying for their health care. I guarantee it.

They aren't paying less. They are simply paying it using taxes. Nothing is free


Umm, they are paying less. In some cases, much, much less. One of the main reasons that full gold-plated private health insurance is so cheap in the UK is because they have to compete with the NHS, which 95% of people are perfectly satisfied.

I thought competition was a good thing?

Same amount of money is needed. It's just taken from you in a different way.


No it isn't. Huge slabs of the costs of healthcare are entirely variable, depending on all sorts of things (mainly the purchasing power of a group, the profit margins, and their alleged bureaucracy "costs" [which are often profit margins by a different name]).

Stop pretending you don't understand. This isn't a zero sum game.

Well, come on. Other than the fact that we spend the most per capita on healthcare in the world, and the fact that despite that expense we barely achieve outcomes in the 60th percentile, and the fact that lots of people are unable to afford healthcare or insurance, and the fact that those who are eligible for government help may not get it or even know due to bureaucracy... other than that, we have the best health care in the universe!

Serious Black: CujoQuarrel: Serious Black: They wouldn't be satisfied with their health care costs if they knew what people in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, or really any other developed country on the entire planet were paying for their health care. I guarantee it.

They aren't paying less. They are simply paying it using taxes. Nothing is free

LOL. Really? You really believe that? I have land in Florida for sale if you do.

You really think that it costs less? Why on earth would you think that?

Bruce Campbell: t3knomanser: Anyone who thinks the US has a decent health-care system has never had to deal with a serious illness.

I had a 3.8cm3 tumor removed from my brain in October that was putting pressure on my brain stem, hearing, vestibular and facial nerves and without treatment would ultimately have resulted in my death. I'd call that a serious illness, but I think the health care system is well beyond decent. I have no side effects from the procedure and I am out of pocket $1100 for a procedure that had a total cost of $120,000. I had many choices on possible remedies (3 different surgical approaches and cyberknife) readily available to me and the opportunity to research and choose what was the best choice for me.

A cube in your brain? Sure it wasn't a Borg implant?