I am 22, why should I care about health care benefits at work?

[cloud999]

Maybe a bit off topic... but I can understand the doctors in such a system. A doctor want to live, too... and that isn´t possible if nobody pays the bill or pay with food or whatever.
Isn´t there any social service where he can borrow the money from and pay back if he get his next money?

Yep...our financial sector, aka Wallstreet.

I can´t understand why a so called first world country cares for his citizens like a third world country ... Here in Germany a employer has a big problem when he don´t pay the social-insurances for his employee..... If a official health insurance know that a employer don´t pay the insurances he gets a visit from the police.... and he has to pay ... or if he does it willful he gets some years into prison. If a employee works "black"..that means willful without paying insurances he has to pay it back or gets PRison, too.

That's how the US System works, in a nutshell. All employers are legally required to provide health insurance for their full-time employees, or else be fined/arrested. Unemployed individuals get up to a year of healthcare insurance provided by their former employer, and families below the poverty line get their healthcare paid for by the US government in full (Medicaid). The majority of American families fall into these two categories, and neither of them complain.

Also, once you hit 64, the government pays for your healthcare in-full (Medicare).

The people who fall through the cracks, and you hear about on TV, are those that work multiple low-paying part-time jobs (substitute teachers, burger-flippers, musicians, etc). Which, due to the extended recession, are more and more people because full-time jobs are now rare. Like unemployed recent college grads.

I'm actually amazed how little you Europeans know about our healthcare system. Myths abound in this topic.

[WesHollywood]

You seriously think people who spend 30 years studying and going $200k into student debt for an MD should work for free? Do you still believe in Santa Claus? We pay sexy people who recite memorized lines on film more than individuals who spent decades learning to save lives.

No one forced them into medicine. They knew the cost, effort, and requirements as well as the reward of partnership in a medical corporation. They could join the Peace Corp if their goal was to help others. It is all about medical corporations.

I partied with interns one time and never again. The subject of of conversation was a pharmaceutical company that would buy a doctor a new Boxer Porche if they signed with that pharmaceutical company to push their drugs.

These guys are bigger thieves than lawyers.

[WesHollywood]

Funny you're speaking of myths, because THIS IS FALSE. The majority of hospitals in the US are non-profit organizations (62%). Only 18% of US hospitals are for-profit corporations.

Always quick to manufacture facts, but never with a credible source link. Ever heard of an HMO, (ie; medical corporation for profit to shareholders).

[WesHollywood]

Only if you qualify for Federal Medicaid, which provides free healthcare for those under the poverty line. Roughly 40% of all healthcare expenses in the US are paid for by the government.

If you can work, you're paying. Someone like me can't go and get all the "free" medical procedures I desire without chipping in per procedure. Under my current plan, I pay $800/year in advance for preventative medicine, and up to $1750 for any hospitalization/surgeries I may need. This means that I need to keep approximately $2550 in my Health Savings Account to cover all potential medical expenses per year, and that money is tax-free. If I don't get sick, however, I don't pay that year and that $1750 rolls over.

I also have a critical-illness and accident policy, which costs me about $150/year. This policy will pay me a lump sum of $17000 in the event that I am diagnosed with serious illness or severe traffic accident which puts me into the hospital for several years.

Considering that a major surgery can cost upwards of $300k at one of the best hospitals in the world, I'd pay just $1750 of that total amount with my plans.

And, once again, not a credible source link to back up a word of this post. Ever thought of becoming a creative writer for the Republican Party? They invent their own facts too.

[WesHollywood]

Yep...our financial sector, aka Wallstreet.


That's how the US System works, in a nutshell. All employers are legally required to provide health insurance for their full-time employees, or else be fined/arrested. Unemployed individuals get up to a year of healthcare insurance provided by their former employer, and families below the poverty line get their healthcare paid for by the US government in full (Medicaid). The majority of American families fall into these two categories, and neither of them complain........

Not so, several States, and most recently New Mexico are not adding individuals who qualify for Medicaid to their member list. They do not have the money to pay the bills of the existing Medicaid recipients due to Tea Bag Republican Governors slashing budgets to give tax breaks to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

[cloud999]

And, once again, not a credible source link to back up a word of this post. Ever thought of becoming a creative writer for the Republican Party? They invent their own facts too.

Hospital types in the US:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05743t.pdf


Total US healthcare spending and sources:

https://www.cms.gov/NationalHealthExpend...#TopOfPage

Medicare and Medicaid:

https://www.cms.gov/home/medicaid.asp
http://www.medicare.gov/default.aspx


Source data on my personal healthcare plan is not available to the public, as anyone with a workplace-provided plan knows.

Your ignorance does not make me a liar.

---

Perhaps state budgets are being cut because we are in a recession? We can't all follow the suicidal stupidity of California leadership, spending more and more as income falls. Or is the unemployment rate a Republican lie, too?

[zeon]

I am grateful we have a NHS system in this country... We call it free however its not because we pay national Insurance in our monthly wage packet qwhich helps funds this service so when we need it it is avalible regardless.... Sadly the tramps use it more than most with drugs alcohol and stupidityy

[ZackT]

I used to think the same thing...I don't need health insurance, I rarely get sick...

Until my back molars all got infected and caused me agonizing pain and I needed to come up with 1753 dollars for my teeth removal + take a week off work. Luckily I had about half that in savings, my roommate loaned me the rest and I paid him back over the next couple of months.

I still don't have insurance at the moment because I work as a temporary employee, technically, and health benefits aren't offered to us. But I will take it the next time it's offered...

[James]

For the most part. the health system fails in usa, cause of the juries awarding so much money on small cases, if they would bring it into proportion, doctor's malpractice insurance would be less. and health care would be more affordable, jim

[WesHollywood]

Thank you for the links. Very much appreciated. This gives you credibility, and shows you are willing to make a real effort to support your posts. Kuddos.

Now I find myself in a dilemma. After you have provided links they are not convincing to me. And I really do not want to deteriorate this thread with minute details. Please accept my remarks as intended in a polite fashion. Your first link is from 2006, and your second to be 2008. They are really not current enough to be of much value. Bush is no longer president. All four of your links might be catagorized as being too broad. It should not be the job of the recipient of links to read for a half hour to find the information you are eager to provide. From the standpoint of debate on the internet the correct posting of a link would be as follows. For example;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Kutcher

Kutcher's brother's cardiomyopathy caused his home life to become increasingly stressful. He has stated that "I didn't want to come home and find more bad news about my brother" and "kept myself so busy that I didn't allow myself to feel". Kutcher admitted that during adolescence, he contemplated committing suicide. At thirteen, he attempted to jump from a Cedar Rapids hospital balcony, with his father intervening in the incident.

So, I take this thread back to the original OP shown below. I do not see where you have provided a direct answer to the question of this thread. I am 22, why should I care about health care benefits at work? In a debate environment, I could throw out all your links as "non-specific" and an effort to bury the issue of this thread in information. For now I will let that go so you can revisit the question of this thread with concise links. I am 22, why should I care about health care benefits at work? Please reach out again, if you would, and provide concise factual links to support your arguments.

That was my attitude until a few months ago. A 26 year old friend of mine woke up one morning with what felt like a pulled muscle in his shoulder. He makes $1,600 a month driving a delivery truck for a department store.

He ended up in surgery, and had to lay out $1,000 on the spot which he scraped together. NO $1,000, no surgery. NO surgery, no truck driving. How many of us tweens have $1,000 in savings?

My bud negotiated his medical bill payments down to $600 a month, and his rent is $850 a month for a studio apartment. He has crap health coverage with a $5,000 deductable, but he has no savings. As he has been off work, he has only received 60% of his pay check for the last three months. Now that has ended, he gets nothing.

Over the weekend came the knockout bomb. Pay $375 a month to continue his health and dental insurance. And, there is no guarantee he will get his job back, (this is a good job by L. A. standards these days). That just blew him out of L. A. and his life as he knows it.

It is pretty clear bankruptcy is coming if he does not catch a break. The soonest he could go back to work is this February. Looks like he will be heading back to Keokuk, Iowa to live with mom and dad. We will all miss this great guy.

While The Affordable Care Act, (Obamacare), would have prevented this, the thrust of the legislation does not go into effect until 2018. Too bad for my bud. Republicans are trying to scuttle the Affordable Care Act in order to provide more tax breaks for the rich. I just think it is important that we tweens know how this can work - failed - sucks!

Hypocratic Oath my ass, these guys are the worst kind of thieves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath

[COLOR="DarkRed"]I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not", nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.[/COLOR]

Your ignorance does not make me a liar.

Please avoid the customary righty name-calling and explain precisely what you mean by the above statement. While I do not pretend to be an expert on all subjects, I am on the question of my 28 year old friend being screwed by his employer, benefits people, doctors, hospitals, and medical related corporations in general.

Please do go on and explain yourself.