Health Care Reform thread

[MadMarchHare]

FSA = Flex Spending Account?

Yes.  The advantage to the high deductible plan is that there are no out of pocket costs for having it....until you get sick.
On top of that, in an effort to maintain "wellness" all checkups and standard preventative meds (shots for the kids, mammograms, prostate eval, etc) is free of charge.  As are all company drugs.  Of course, all we make are pain, cancer and AIDS drugs, so I'm hoping I never have to use any of ours.

[MadMarchHare]

Tort reform is critical.  Lawyers and insurance companies are the biggest problem in health care.
farging ambulance chasers.

[PhillyPhreak54]

FSA = Flex Spending Account?

Yes.  The advantage to the high deductible plan is that there are no out of pocket costs for having it....until you get sick.
On top of that, in an effort to maintain "wellness" all checkups and standard preventative meds (shots for the kids, mammograms, prostate eval, etc) is free of charge.  As are all company drugs.  Of course, all we make are pain, cancer and AIDS drugs, so I'm hoping I never have to use any of ours.

My company has FSA and I haven't looked into it too much, but I think the way it works here (not sure about all places) is they take money from each check, pre-tax, and deposit it into the account. You can then use the debit card to pay for anything needed for medical expenses.

The kicker is that if you don't use it, it's gone after the year.

We have a high deductible plan ($500) and I don't like it. I rarely have to go to the doctor, maybe once a year, and its always out of pocket for the visit.

I had the flu in 2008 and it cost me $225 to go to the doctor.

[Rome]

I love how people insist lawyers are root of all evil right up until the point where their life or well-being depends on one. 

[rjs246]

Lawyers represent the best and the worst that society has to offer. On the one hand they are in place to protect people's rights and fight for them when they cannot fight for themselves.

On the other hand that amazingly important and valiant position affords them the opportunity to milk the system for monetary gain under questionable motives and to use the law to protect themselves and others who by all logic should be burned alive.

I'm planning on (thinking about/studying for/terrified of the idea of) going to law school. I wonder which kind I will be.

[Rome]

Probably an Erin Brockovich type.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I was thinking more along the lines of Night Court

[Rome]

I was thinking more along the lines of Night Court

Phreak = Bull Shannon.

[PhillyPhreak54]

 

[ATV]

A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) study published in Monday's New England Journal of Medicine shows that 63 percent of physicians support a health reform proposal that includes both a public option and traditional private insurance. If the additional 10 percent of doctors who support an entirely public health system are included, then approximately three out of four physicians nationwide support inclusion of a public option.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/majority-of-doctors-back_n_286352.html

FivethirtyEight on bowsers's wet dream...

My advice would be to completely ignore this poll. There are pollsters out there that have an agenda but are highly competent, and there are pollsters that are nonpartisan but not particularly skilled. Rarely, however, do you find the whole package: that special pollster which is both biased and inept. IBD/TIPP is one of the few exceptions.

From http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/ibdtipp-doctors-poll-is-not-trustworthy.html

[mpmcgraw]

Lawyers represent the best and the worst that society has to offer. On the one hand they are in place to protect people's rights and fight for them when they cannot fight for themselves.

On the other hand that amazingly important and valiant position affords them the opportunity to milk the system for monetary gain under questionable motives and to use the law to protect themselves and others who by all logic should be burned alive.

I'm planning on (thinking about/studying for/terrified of the idea of) going to law school. I wonder which kind I will be.

OMG maybe we'll graduate law school together <3

[MadMarchHare]

FSA = Flex Spending Account?

Yes.  The advantage to the high deductible plan is that there are no out of pocket costs for having it....until you get sick.
On top of that, in an effort to maintain "wellness" all checkups and standard preventative meds (shots for the kids, mammograms, prostate eval, etc) is free of charge.  As are all company drugs.  Of course, all we make are pain, cancer and AIDS drugs, so I'm hoping I never have to use any of ours.

My company has FSA and I haven't looked into it too much, but I think the way it works here (not sure about all places) is they take money from each check, pre-tax, and deposit it into the account. You can then use the debit card to pay for anything needed for medical expenses.

The kicker is that if you don't use it, it's gone after the year.

We have a high deductible plan ($500) and I don't like it. I rarely have to go to the doctor, maybe once a year, and its always out of pocket for the visit.

I had the flu in 2008 and it cost me $225 to go to the doctor.

That's how our FSA works as well.  Keep in mind, though, you can buy all kinds of shtein with your FSA contribution:  contact lens fluid, vitamins, therapeutic massage (no BJs though).

As for lawyers, I got no problem with average lawyers.  It's the tort lawyers, particularly the ones that advertise on TV (James Sokolov, I'm looking at you) that need to be loaded into a crate and dropped in the Atlantic trench.

[bowzer]

Lawyers represent the best and the worst that society has to offer. On the one hand they are in place to protect people's rights and fight for them when they cannot fight for themselves.

On the other hand that amazingly important and valiant position affords them the opportunity to milk the system for monetary gain under questionable motives and to use the law to protect themselves and others who by all logic should be burned alive.

I'm planning on (thinking about/studying for/terrified of the idea of) going to law school. I wonder which kind I will be.

OMG maybe we'll graduate law school together <3

Me three!!

[bowzer]

The Huffington Post is about as reliable as Winston Justice circa 2007.

[ATV]

The Huffington Post is about as reliable as Winston Justice circa 2007.

You mean the New England Journal of Medicine? Yea, there's a piece of garbage if if there ever was one. Total hack mag.


You have nothing.....nothing.