Politics & Current Events
Dear Community,

Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.

If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.

Thank you.

Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.

Did anyone watch Rock Center last night re:patients living in the hospital?

I work in the health insurance industry and certain parts of the story I just don't get. I'd like to hear others thoughts on the subject before I go into a rant about universal healthcare.

Re: Did anyone watch Rock Center last night re:patients living in the hospital?

  • That story was so sad. I wish that there were a program that could step in and help these people liquidate their assets so that they could get on the road to qualifying for Medicaid. I do understand that this is not an option for undocumented immigrants, though.
    image
  • Ok I just watched that segment.  I think there are a lot of problems with the current system.

    What is your concern about universal health care?

  • imageflygirl18:
    I work in the health insurance industry and certain parts of the story I just don't get. I'd like to hear others thoughts on the subject before I go into a rant about universal healthcare.

    A rant for or against?

    In my country, which has universal healthcare, people can be in the hospital for a few weeks waiting for the right nursing home bed to open up. I don't know what would happen to someone who was not there legally.

  • imageKnitty:

    imageflygirl18:
    I work in the health insurance industry and certain parts of the story I just don't get. I'd like to hear others thoughts on the subject before I go into a rant about universal healthcare.

    A rant for or against?

    In my country, which has universal healthcare, people can be in the hospital for a few weeks waiting for the right nursing home bed to open up. I don't know what would happen to someone who was not there legally.

    You can't make people pay for insurance who have no money and if these people couldnt qualify for Medicaid, who will? Is there going to be another tax payer funded program for all the people like this that fall thru the cracks. And as the story stated, will insurance be required to cover long term care or will you have to buy a policy for that too? What about the people with chronic illnesses who lose group coverage and can't afford an individual policy? Many insurance companies are just now learning what the impact of the unlimited lifetime maxes-I don't see universal healthcare ever being effective unless the whole industry is completely changed (hospitals, Drs, insurance, etc)
  • Without insurance, there is little to no chance the patient will be placed an an appropriate facility.  Even with Medicare of Medicaid, there is often a long waiting list.

    I work in a short-term facility- days, maybe weeks.  We've had patients here for over a year because their family cannot take care of them at home, and waiting lists for an appropriate facility is that long.  The insurance company will stop paying after the patient doesn't "need" a certain level of care, and we can't just send them out the door with no where to go.  So they stay, and the facility manages.

    It's bad for the patient, because at a certain point there's not much more that can be done here for them.  It's bad for us, because we are never going to be compensated for that care.  And it's bad for everyone else, because healthcare costs will continue to rise.

    I don't really have a solution for it, I just understand the predicament everyone is in.

    ETA: Edited for spelling and grammar

    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
  • imageMrsBeagle:

    Without insurance, there is little to no chance the patient will be placed an an appropriate facility.  Even with Medicare of Medicaid, there is often a long waiting list.

    I don't understand why insurance is the issue. Does health insurance pay for nursing homes? My grandmother had to pay OOP for her six-year stay at the nursing home. Medicaid would have started paying had she run out of money/assets.

    image
  • imageflygirl18:
    You can't make people pay for insurance who have no money and if these people couldnt qualify for Medicaid, who will? Is there going to be another tax payer funded program for all the people like this that fall thru the cracks. And as the story stated, will insurance be required to cover long term care or will you have to buy a policy for that too? What about the people with chronic illnesses who loose group coverage and can't afford an individual policy? Many insurance companies are just now learning what the impact of the unlimited lifetime maxes-I don't see universal healthcare ever being effective unless the whole industry is completely changed (hospitals, Drs, insurance, etc)

    Well, with universal healthcare, people wouldn't have to pay astronomical rates for insurance policies, as coverage would be provided for all citizens. So I think you're talking about two different issues here.

    You seem to be referring to the health insurance mandate. This is necessary, IMO, because you have people who don't purchase insurance,  by choice, when they have the ability. Then when they get seriously ill/injured, they are treated just the same as those who pay for their policies. They don't pay (because, really, who can at the rates hospitals charge?) and the costs is spread among those who do pay - insured citizens, who see their rates go up as a result, which then leads to the start of the cycle again.

    A single payer system would stop all this nonsense.  Healthcare should never have been for-profit. Someone whose role is to save the company money by denying legitimate claims should not be the one in charge of the healthcare I receive.

    And, yeah - an overhaul of the entire hospital system is going to happen regardless of whether or not we have UHC. It's not sustainable at this stage - people can't continue to pay the increasing costs. There are many moves towards quality which help to reduce costs underway now. It's happening. Hopefully the days of big profits for  the insurance industry are over.

    imageimage
  • I didn't see the story, but some hospitals with large undocumented patients who require a lot of care but no $$$ and don't qualify for gov't funding have been paying to transport patients back to El Salvador, Mexico, etc.
  • imageRedBellPeppers:

    I don't understand why insurance is the issue. Does health insurance pay for nursing homes? My grandmother had to pay OOP for her six-year stay at the nursing home. Medicaid would have started paying had she run out of money/assets.

    In these cases, they have no insurance and no ability to pay OOP.  Health insurance does pay for skilled nursing/nursing hime care, depending on the plan, of course.

     

    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
Sign In or Register to comment.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards