I am not sure that some of you are aware that the current government is trying to ram government health care down the throats of the voters. It is stated that a government system will compete with private insurance, this is bunch of foolishness. Eventually, the government system will crowd out the private market, reducing reimbursement rates, and physicians and nurses will leave the health care system, causing long lines and horrible health care.
Why would you pursue a career to be a physician or a specialized nurse, if you were unable to pay off a large student loan? How long do you want you and others to wait for a kidney transplant? Currently, Medicare is expensive because the goverment is paying 45 percent of all Medical claims in the United States. The way to reduce these costs is consumer choice.
In Sweden, the government decides what drugs you are able to purchase with your own private money, do we want that in the United States? The government knows more about our health care than we do??? Business will not be able to afford these tax increases and people are going to be laid off or fired, resulting less tax revenue to the government, along with high budget deficits.
In states where government health care has been tried, this system has been an object failure. In my state of Ohio, high taxes have result in businesses and corporations moving out of the state, If you are wondering, Ohio has the 3rd highest tax rate in the nation, behind California and New York, now, in a few years, Ohio will be facing huge budget deficits. Guess which programs are going to be cut, Medicaid, take a wild guess who will be hurt by these cuts? National health care will hurt the sick and the elderly, consumer choice health care equals compassion.
I agree with your statement, I was recently terminated from my employer for supposedly falsifying documentation. I have yet to see the proof of said documentation and this company known to be the largest provider in the world will I’m sure manufacture a document that backs them up. All in an effort to deny my request for unemployement compensation. This is a sad state of affairs because this company is trying to save money by getting rid of higher paid employees and replacing them with younger less qualified staff. If I ever lost my kidney function I would rather die then make money for these huge conglomerate companies that say “we are here to help”. When actually they are there to help you empty your bank account in the first 3 months before medicaid kicks in then they will have your unit social worker help you get on medicaid so medicaid can then be billed for the services that are provided to you. I would rather die then make money for these companies that treat there employees like crap, and because an at will employee contract they can get rid of you for any or no reason at all. If you are a dialysis patient, ask your facility staff if they are there to collect a paycheck or do they really want to be there to help people. I got my money on them saying they are there to get paid. There is a ton of money in the field and this is all thanks to medicaid and the government. The fact is, the country would save a lot of money if they just cut out the medicaid program and stopped re-imbursing these huge companies. I guess I sound a little disgruntled but I was a committed employee working for the largest provider of dialysis care in the WORLD, and have seen this company drive out or fire there employees who were committed to quality patient care. Now that I am unemployed I am considering writing a book to expose what the patient does not know about these companies. IT IS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY>not about your care or your quality of life.REMEMBER IT IS A BUSINESS just like any other. The question is would they continue helping people if the government stopped reimbursement or would they continue saving people from a untimely death by exhausting all share holders money? I believe they would liquify the remaining money and pay the share holders and close up shop for good. In the coming years we shall all see what happens. Something to consider if you are taking dialysis at a outpatient hemo clinic I’ll bet anywhere in this country. This is the first time I have seen or even used this forum or any forum, but now that I don’t have a job to goto I guess I will need something to do. I’m sorry if I have offended anyone but more then 15years of experience are speaking here.
I have over 30 years experience as a social worker working with people with kidney failure. The answer to your question is that dialysis providers would not continue providing dialysis to people with kidney failure if they didn’t get paid by someone…if not the government or insurance companies, by the people who need dialysis. There was no Medicare coverage of dialysis until 1973 and those who couldn’t afford dialysis died. There are really poor patients who are on Medicaid (state medical assistance), but most of those on dialysis qualify for Medicare no matter their age. However, they (or their spouse or parent, if a child has kidney failure) must have worked and earned enough credits to qualify. And no…undocumented people do not qualify for Medicare for dialysis.
If you think that employer based insurance would take on the full cost of dialysis, I can tell you that they’ve fought pretty hard to avoid being liable any longer than they already are for dialysis charges. Research has shown that when Medicare started paying secondary to employer plans for 12 month back in the 1990s (now employer plans pay first for 30 months), employers terminated employees on dialysis, offered to pay them incentives to drop company insurance or didn’t hire people who were on dialysis. Even spouses lost jobs or couldn’t get new jobs if their insurance was through their spouse. I can tell you with absolute certainty that if the government didn’t help to pay the cost of dialysis, the likelihood of dialysis patients keeping their jobs would be small if they were working for companies that provided health insurance. Few of them would be able to afford dialysis even at the Medicare rate at >$21,000 a year plus charges from drugs they need given during dialysis. Surely you’re not suggesting we as a society stop treating kidney failure and let people die.
I don’t know any business that provides services for free, even nonprofit ones. And I don’t know many people who can afford to volunteer 100% of their time unless they have someone else supporting them. Even people that want to get a paid do their best to provide high quality care for patients even if they work for profit driven dialysis corporations.