posted
I'm intrigued as well [EDIT: to know why CHiP is inferior to private insurance] because of the constant claim that any publicly-paid-for insurance is worse. I don't know anything about CHiP, but my kids get Medicaid, and I would say that their coverage and service is better than my HMO.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Yeah, my last pregnancy my doctor referred me for a diagnostic 4-D ultrasound-- something that people with other insurance generally have to pay 20-40% of, even when it's medically warranted. (The lab skipped my screening tests and it was too late to re-do them by the time my doc found out. He was rather livid.)
Medi-Cal (CA state Medicaid) paid 100% of it, no questions asked.
I've never had to pay more than $5 for my kids for medical care on Healthy Families, and that's at a specialty clinic; regular preventive care is 100% free. With Healthy Families (CA state CHIP) they get great dental, vision, and health benefits, and they are covered for ANYTHING that might come up. Even our co-pay for ER visits is $5 (nothing if they're admitted.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I've never made a copayment for the girls. Never paid a cent, basically. And they've had all the referrals they need and stuff, with never a complaint. And I really like their pediatrician.
The only quibble I ever had was when they declined to cover Xopenex (Levalbuterol) and I had to switch them back to albuterol. I suspect that if I had fought that fight harder, I could have won it, but the girls seemed to have outgrowned their tendency to get hyper on albuterol, so I didn't really care that much. But I have much worse complaints about my HMO service.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Yes, Medicaid is great. I never paid anything with either of mine when they were on it (they stop qualifying at a year.)
Even OTC meds were free. The doctor would just write a prescription and they would be covered. Same with baby vitamins.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Yes, Medicaid is great. I never paid anything with either of mine when they were on it (they stop qualifying at a year.)
Even OTC meds were free. The doctor would just write a prescription and they would be covered. Same with baby vitamins. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No, the meds were not free. Somebody paid for them. Maybe not you, but somebody, somewhere did.
It sounds great to say "Hey, let's make sure every single kid has health insurance and their parents don't have to pay anything." Sounds great, doesn't happen in the real world without also finding the money to pay for it.
Don't most states have programs to cover children without insurance? We have AllKids here in Alabama. Is this bill cutting funding to state programs, or is it cutting funding to something that is separate from state programs? I'm just too busy with school right now to read up on everything properly, so I apologize if those are basic questions or if I'm missing the bigger picture.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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You're arguing a different side of the issue, Belle. Neither of us were discussing the ideological value of government-provided services versus everybody paying for their own. The specific complaint that I wanted addressed was the "quality of service" complaint. I simply have not found the quality of Medicaid service to be inferior.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I get that, Icarus, and as far as I know the AllKids insurance here is not inferior either.
I just don't think we can lose sight of the fact that funding for programs dosn't magically appear when it's written down in a budget. It does have to come from somewhere.
Does anybody know what the federal vs. state contributions to these programs is? Because I think it's mostly a state-funded program. As a staunch believer in local government over federalizing everything, I'd prefer that, myself.
And I don't mean to be crass here, or unsympathetic. I can certainly understand being in circumstances that are difficult and needing help to properly care for your kids. But, as somebody who fights like heck to come up with the money for our premiums and copays and sees it as a losing battle - for the past three years any raise my husband received was negated by an accompanying increase in insurance premiums - it sort of rubs me the wrong way to see people talking blithely about not even having to pay for OTC meds.
But forgive me, I don't mean to be aggressive toward you or kq, I'm tired. I will bow out of the conversation since I probably don't have much substantive to add.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Belle, each state in the US is required to have a program (as a part of SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which is Title XXI of the Social Security Act) that provides healthcare coverage to children who do not have it otherwise.
AllKids is Alabama's version. BadgerCare is Wisconsin's version, and KidCare is Florida's. These are exactly the programs being discussed here.
Basically, each state is required (federally) to have such a program, and the state funds are matched with federal funds up to a certain cap. The states have a lot of leeway to tailor the program's benefits and its adminstration within each state itself, although there are minimums set for coverage.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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I'm not offended or anything, Belle. I don't have a lot to add either. I don't know enough about the specifics of this program. All I have is my limited experience of Medicaid.
Philosophically, I happen to be of the belief that this country can and should make adequate medical care a right instead of a privilege. "Adequate medical coverage" to me means access to a regular doctor, and not just running up credit-rating-crushing-debts at the emergency room. I am also swayed by the arguments that say that making this occur will be a sound investment, economically, compared to the cost of footing the bill for unpaid emergency room bills after preventive care has not taken place. But I fully admit that that's not a position I have researched, other than reading posts here. I have simply chosen which experts I find most convincing. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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AvidReader- Dan_Raven's factcheck link addresses how much a family of four can make and be on CHIP and where the $80,000 number comes from.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Oh, and if anyone wasn't sure, I am completely for universal healthcare. It really does cost us less on the long run, since emergency medicine is much more expensive than preventory medicine.
Also, I have to spend around $400 dollars a month just to BREATHE. That doesn't include doctor visits or emergency room visits. Even with health insurance I couldn't afford my medication. It is actually more cost effective for me to stay below the poverty line and get my medication from the free clinic than to get a wage job with health insurance. I ended up significantly poorer with health insurance. The majority of my money went to medical costs. This is just about respiration, mind you. Nevermind GYN visits, that I've had thrush since April, and the fact that if I don't get to see an orthopod and a physical therapist soon my career as a dancer may be prematurely snuffed out thanks to a brilliant knee injury.
I also had the harrowing experience as a teenager of being caught in a state that had next to zero public health programs if you weren't pregnant. I couldn't even afford to go see a doctor to get a prescription for the medications I needed, much less actually get the meds. I went at least six months barely breathing. Every other night I stopped breathing in my sleep. Great life for a dancer, huh? Of course I couldn't dance in this period of my life. Or run half a block, or walk in the cold, or, well, anything.
I would gladly give up much of what truly is luxurious (television, high heels, haircuts, conditioner, ice cream, gasoline) in my life if it meant no one else had to go through that sort of desperation and fear. I already donate more than I can afford to the Family Clinic that has been providing my basic healthcare for a couple years now.
I truly feel that in the long run it would benefit us all, as a society. So many of the people I know work their butts off and still can't get the healthcare they need. Right now healthcare for Americans is determined by Pharmaceutical Companies and Health Insurance Companies. The former being incredibly capitalistic in their means and ends, the latter being more about sheisting than helping.
The fact that this particular issue is about CHILDREN'S access to healthcare makes this a black and white issue for me. Either you give a crap about innocent people, or you don't. ::shrugs:: And if you don't, I wish you'd go live somewhere else. Alone. /rant.
quote:If they'd rather die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population. Good night, gentlemen.
quote: The fact that this particular issue is about CHILDREN'S access to healthcare makes this a black and white issue for me. Either you give a crap about innocent people, or you don't. ::shrugs:: And if you don't, I wish you'd go live somewhere else. Alone. /rant.
And to be totally cynical about it, that's what the politicians are hoping for. They can put anything they want in bills like this if they get us used to the mindset that it saves poor children.
As for the factcheck numbers, Florida's looks great. $40,000 is enough for two people if they're careful with their money. It wouldn't be enough for kids. $50,000 in states with more taxes makes sense, but what's the cost of living in NJ that families making $70,000 a year qualify?
Is that $70,000 when they have a kid with a birth defect insurance won't cover, or is that anyone? Cause I'd think you could reasonably afford decent insurance on your own. I'm even leery of the $60,000 amounts in most states. I just have a hard time seeing that as low-income.
Frankly, it looks like a lot of these states need to be reigning in their spending, not expanding it. I don't mind helping people who need it. But again, I don't feel the need to help people who make a lot more than me cover their insurance.
Unless the kids have birth defects. I think there should be a seperate program that just covers that. You need a procedure or medicine that costs a certain percentage of your household income, and the rest of us pick up the tab. You can wipe out a family no matter how much they make with a couple expensive surgeries.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Actually, I think I'd expand that idea to everyone. Get the job you want, and medical expenses over a certain percentage would be shared by everyone. We have 300 million Americans, you'd think we'd do ok spreading out the cost. The hard part would be figuring out how to prevent fraud and legal junkies from abusing the system. But I think it's a good starting point.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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To all those concerned, who bemoan waste 'inherent' to social medical systems:
Our own private system costs two and a half times the industrialized world's median costs per capita and is worse than all the G8 social medicine systems and pours bucketfuls of money into bureaucracy and paperwork.
If one is concerned about waste and inefficiency and has a fairly truthful and honest understanding of the situation involving healthcare, the only real option is an abandonment of the private model.
Let's start with cries of 'but the children!' since they take us in the right direction (hint: preventative care is good for all of us)
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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What frustrates me about the guidelines in my state is if we were to make enough to cover all our bills, including the student loans that continually accrue interest but aren't being paid on because we can't afford it, we would lose our healthcare through the state. My husband works as a teacher for a small charter school who doesn't provide benefits. I looked at working at my son's school so I could still ferry kids too and from school but I would make less than the health insurance premiums for our family not to mention the increase in out of pocket expenses.
So our only option, to keep our kids insured is to maintain this level of poverty, continue to defer our student loans (and watch them increase ) to keep the health care that we can not go without. Stephen's medication costs alone if paid out of pocket would total over $1000 a month. Add in monthly, sometimes semi-monthly, lab work and quarterly specialists visits and we'd be sunk deeper than we are now. And I hate it. I want to pay my bills. I want to have some left over to save, I want to have some to do something fun once in awhile. Sure it was our choice to have kids, but we didn't choose my son's heart problem and transplant. We didn't choose my daughters asthma.
I don't know how to fix the system. I'm not naive enough to think it can be done without the dishonesty (and don't get me started on the illegal immigrants getting free healthcare). Its quite a despairing situation.
And I really think Bush did his party some major harm making this one of his last issues. Wonder if those against him realized it and planned it this way knowing he would veto.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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I have to admit, I've become a bit softer on the idea of socialized medicine lately. I can't say that in front of my husband, though, so I guess I'll ahve to say it here.
Every year health care costs go up sooo much. We just got word that our premiums may go up this year as much as 50%...AGAIN. And our insurance sucks big time. I guess that's one reason I'm keener on socialized health care -- I didn't realize how much insurance sucks and how little choice we really have until my husband changed jobs this Spring. All of a sudden the only choice we had was how large of a deductible to go with. Our insurance doesn't pay a dime until we rack up $1,000 in medical expenses for each person each year. And that is just not hard to do. After that, we still have to pay %15.
But the trouble with socialized medicine is that I worry that instead of everyone getting to go to a good system, we all have to go to a bad system. Most people don't really have choices now, but a few companies have chosen good (if expensive) insurance for their employees. If we had socialized medicine we might not even be able to improve our health insurance by going to a different company.
I sometimes just wish we had honest choices.
And I'm very confused about the cost of health care. Why does it keep leaping every year so much faster than inflation? Why do private companies waste so much money in bureaucracy?
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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CT has explained this in more than one thread, but I don't have the time to go looking for it -- there is a difference between socialized medicine and universal health insurance. In socialized medicine the hospitals, clinics, etc are all run by the government and doctors & other medical workers are government employees. With single-payer health insurance the doctors, hospitals, etc work the same way they do now, but they file their reimbursement claims to a single agency. (Although some of the plans for universal health insurance still have multiple competing insurance agencies too.)
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:If we had socialized medicine we might not even be able to improve our health insurance by going to a different company.
That's unlikely. Supplemental insurance will continue to be available, and may well become cheaper if baseline insurance costs are standardized.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:With single-payer health insurance the doctors, hospitals, etc work the same way they do now, but they file their reimbursement claims to a single agency. (Although some of the plans for universal health insurance still have multiple competing insurance agencies too.)
With there being a single agency paying the bills, that agency will have enormous power and influence over the doctors and hospitals. It would not work the same way it does now.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: CT has explained this in more than one thread, but I don't have the time to go looking for it -- there is a difference between socialized medicine and universal health insurance. In socialized medicine the hospitals, clinics, etc are all run by the government and doctors & other medical workers are government employees. With single-payer health insurance the doctors, hospitals, etc work the same way they do now, but they file their reimbursement claims to a single agency. (Although some of the plans for universal health insurance still have multiple competing insurance agencies too.)
Actually, that's not a bad way of explaining the difference. It makes some sense. I still wonder how such a plan would work. It is often our health insurance plans themselves that limit access to care. So there may still be worse access to doctors and hospitals. Are we talking about an HMO with strict guidelines about which doctors we can see when? Or maybe a needlessly complicated system with so many exceptions that the average genius can't follow?
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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It would be different - the 40 million Americans without health insurance would be covered. You could change jobs without worrying about the health insurance aspect. There would more preventative care.
Even if it stayed just as complicated, it would be better.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: CT has explained this in more than one thread, but I don't have the time to go looking for it -- there is a difference between socialized medicine and universal health insurance.
Here's one of the most recent of them. I was just rereading this thread, actually. CT's first post on the subject is a little less than halfway down the first page.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Incidentally, I'm really happy that Wal-Mart is getting into the drug business.
There are 300 common prescriptions that are now $4. I'm thrilled that they are putting that notorious pressure to keep prices low on pharmaceutical companies. In Wal-Mart vs. pharmaceutical companies, I am definitely backing Wal-Mart.
For the answer of why do health care costs rise so much faster than other goods, part of reason has been that Wal-Mart has not been in the business of providing health care.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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"Not perfect" is an understatement. They are also in the midst of tons of lawsuits for not paying their employees overtime....
cut and edited: I don't want to derail this thread. If anyone really wants to discuss the pros and cons of Wal-Mart, it would probably best be moved to another thread. Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I realize that anything other than 'Wal-Mart=Evil!Eeeeeevviill!' is going to seem odd.
Still, I think this is a very good thing. I also think keeping the lid on inflation in general is a very good thing.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: With there being a single agency paying the bills, that agency will have enormous power and influence over the doctors and hospitals. It would not work the same way it does now.
You might be interested in the Canadian system. The insurance agency power is balanced by the power of the physicians, who negotiate as a group to set compensation standards. They negotiate well.
Overall healthcare costs are low, although Canadian physicians do make somewhat less than their US counterparts in general. However, the compensation is still affords a very comfortable lifestyle in the 6 figures. That is nothing to complain about.
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Edited to add: I'll also note that the healthcare given yields better morbidity and mortality rates for the population, which I've noted before. Canadians are only hurting now (when they do hurt, which is primarily access in rural communities) because the (already more cost-effective system than in the US) has had funding cut again and again by the recent conservative government here.
quote:Originally posted by Christine: Actually, that's not a bad way of explaining the difference. It makes some sense. I still wonder how such a plan would work. It is often our health insurance plans themselves that limit access to care. So there may still be worse access to doctors and hospitals. Are we talking about an HMO with strict guidelines about which doctors we can see when? Or maybe a needlessly complicated system with so many exceptions that the average genius can't follow?
Well, the way it works in Canada is that each citizen has a healthcare number card assigned by the province in which they are enrolled. As a consumer, you can take that card anywhere in Canada --
-- that's anywhere in Canada, any province, any doctor's office, any ER ... just that one card --
-- and that's it. The physician's office, hospital, or ER bills the agency for you. As a consumer, all you need is the one card.
As far as outside Canada, the provincial insurance can be extended for stays up to 2 years. That insurance will cover at least some of the costs for medical bills racked up outside the Canadian system, but coverage is not as complete as when you are within Canada (for one thing, costs in the US (e.g.) are much higher). Travel insurance is recommended as supplemental coverage for some particular people, or for those with long stays.
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Edited to add: Of note, the health outcomes of Canadians are better than US citizens. So though you may wait an extra 2 months for elective bunion surgery, everyone does have access to that surgery -- and those who are acutely ill (as I was with endocarditis) are taken care of immediately.
Plus, Canadian physicians have no idea of what it is like to have to argue with an insurance company to cover something for a given patient. That takes time and resources to do, and it is common for US physicians -- who were found to spend ~44% of their time doing paperwork (primarily to establish sufficient documentation to bill the insurance company).
And "pre-existing conditions" is a foreign language up here. Nobody has any idea what it might mean.
posted
What I think this all boils down to is President Bush does not want to waste Tax dollars on something that can be bought on the open market. He doesn't want this extra resources to be wasted.
Of course, the fact that this 5 year expense is less than the cost of 1 month in Iraq is not important.
What is important is that while this administration wants to fight its own poor and middle class people on whether they deserve/get government paid insurance in order to save tax $ they stone wall most attempts to audit companies like Haliburton and Blackwater on their bills in regards to Iraq and Katrina.
Why is 20 Billion for healthy kids too much, but 20 Billion for Haliburton not to be questioned? Is the threat of Terrorists greater or lesser than the threat posed by being denied services and medicine because 40 million of us citizens are not insured?
Denying this claim seems to benefit only the insurance corporations. Continuing to pay crooked and fraudulent bills sent in by Iraq contractors seems to benefit only the rebuilding corporations. It just sound like this administration is resolved that thise government of the Corporation, and For the Corporation shall not parish from this earth.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I would like to clarify that I see healthcare for children as a black and white issue, not this specific bill. It needs to be done right, but it NEEDS to be done.
It's also hard on the other side of the table. My father is a healthcare provider, and constantly battles to get the medications needed by his patients ok'd by their HMOs...they just don't want to pay for it, and he can't give them the proper treatment.
Right now all the adults living in the U.S. without health insurance make up half the states in the union. There is _obviously_ a problem. It's not like people want to be sick and hurting. I've definitely considered swaying my moral alignments for a little healthcare. Anybody seen that Wanda Sykes sketch?
Edited to note that I realize I have reduntantly echoed the very knowledgable CT.
posted
Publix has a list of antibiotics that they give free. No questions asked, they don't even ask to see my insurance card. If my kids are prescribed amixicillin, I get the prescription free. Everyone who has a prescription for those antibiotics gets it free, regardless of whether you have other prescriptions at Publix or not.
I think it's pretty cool. Not that those prescriptions are very high anyway, usually they're under the amount of my copay, but still, every little bit helps and when you have four kids and one gets sick they almost always get sick, so getting four (or five, if I get it too) prescriptions free does help me.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: Publix has a list of antibiotics that they give free. ... every little bit helps and when you have four kids and one gets sick they almost always get sick, so getting four (or five, if I get it too) prescriptions free does help me.
Belle, I don't think those medications are "free" either, not any more than ketchupqueen's were.
Somebody pays for them. In ketchupqueen's case, you had argued that the cost was distributed one way; but for the antibiotics you received, it was distributed another way (my guess would be to people who actually paid for those or other prescriptions -- those prices would be moderately higher to recoup the costs of what was given out "free").
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Mind you, I don't object to either of you referring to the medications you got as "free." For each of you, they were. But if one objects to one usage of the term because it obscures hidden costs, I think one has to do so in the other case, as well.
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: Belle, I don't think those medications are "free" either, not any more than ketchupqueen's were.
Somebody pays for them. In ketchupqueen's case, you had argued that the cost was distributed one way; but for the antibiotics you received, it was distributed another way (my guess would be to people who actually paid for those or other prescriptions -- those prices would be moderately higher to recoup the costs of what was given out "free").
I wouldn't go so far as to say the situations are equivalent. In one situation a private entity has decided of its own free will to provide certain items below cost, either out of compassion or because loss leaders make business sense, or due to some combination of factors. In the second situation someone has been unwillingly compelled by a powerful government entity to give up their private resources to buy things for someone they've never heard of.
I can understand someone making a distinction between the degrees of "freedom" in those cases.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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I'm pretty sure Publix said it was covered by their marketing budget. They're hoping giving away cheap but widely used medicine will bring folks back when they need other prescriptions filled.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Speed: I can understand someone making a distinction between the degrees of "freedom" in those cases.
That's an error of categorization. Free as in "freedom of choice" != free as in "does not cost money." You are talking about two different uses of the word and conflating the two.
Somebody still bears that cost. They are just as "free" to the people that get them, and the cost doesn't go away.
Sure, you may like how the cost is distributed more in one case than another, but there is no magic wand that makes the cost disappear in either case.
Belle wasn't critiquing the system of cost distribution when she addressed ketchupqueen, Speed. She was critiquing ketchupqueen's use of the word "free," because "No, the meds were not free. Somebody paid for them. Maybe not you, but somebody, somewhere did."
Mind you, I don't quibble with either ketchupqueen or Belle getting those meds, or for either of them referring to them as "free" (because, in the context of their own choices, thet are "free" for them). However, the fact that there are hidden costs borne out by others holds true in both cases, not just in one.
I don't care if you prefer one way of distributing those costs over another, either. That is not my concern. It also has nothing to do with the existence of those other costs -- which is the appropriate concern when assessing the relevance of "free"-ness [in regards the referenced section of the prior conversation], not the further issue of how those costs may be distributed elsewhere.
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AvidReader, the costs still exist, then. They are just distributed within that particular budget.
Again, you may find it more palatable that the costs are budgeted for by the company in advance, as a line on a spreadsheet. Fine. That is different from the critique that was leveled at ketchupqueen, which wasn't that the distribution of costs was unfair, but that she implied there were no costs.
To the extent that there are no costs for Belle's case, there are no costs for ketchupqueen's case. But on the level of context at which we say there are costs in ketchupqueen's case, so too there are in Belle's.
If you want to discuss fairness of distribution of costs, that is a different matter than the existence of the costs.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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I wasn't talking about freedom of choice. The business that provides the goods/services decides the cost to the consumer, and there's a difference between the business deciding that the cost is zero, and the business charging full price, which is extorted from a third party. In both cases the consumer doesn't pay, but they are not both "free" in the same sense of the word.
As for the business distributing the costs elsewhere, it doesn't necessarily work like that. Loss leaders often work when business make back the money in increased volume, not increased markup.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Speed: The business that provides the goods/services decides the cost to the consumer, and there's a difference between the business deciding that the cost is zero, and the business charging full price, which is extorted from a third party.
So you are saying that if the business decides "the cost is zero [to the consumer]," then the medications have no associated costs for anybody (not for development, not for production, not for anybody)? Honest question -- the only way I can make sense of how I read you is to assume this is the stance you take, but it doesn't make sense to me.
quote: In both cases the consumer doesn't pay, but they are not both "free" in the same sense of the word.
Hmmm. I think this question would help enormously: Would you agree there are costs still associated with providing the drug in each case?
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Edited to add: When I wrote "just the same," I was addressing a particular portion of a particular conversation. If it helps for understanding, you may read it as "just the same at the level of your particular criticism" (i.e., whether there are any costs born elsewhere or not).
However, I am not going to reword it that way in my original post, because it would then read as excessively confrontational to my eyes. I am not wishing to be excessively confrontational about it, just to point out that the same objection (re: existence of costs) would apply to one as the other.
Of course nothing is ever "just the same" unless the relationship is an identity. To interpret the use of that analogy phrase always that way -- without reference to the context of the ongoing discussion -- would be an absurdity, so I am sure you are not doing that either.
posted
The word "free" doesn't mean that there were never material or labour costs to anyone, and that the item was magically created by fairy dust and wishes. It wouldn't have much use if it did.
All I'm saying is that if I decide to give you something without charging you for it, that's a different situation than if I decide to sell you something and you get the money from a source that was unwilling to give it to you.
They're not equivalent circumstances, and if someone wants to differentiate between them by using different words to describe them, it makes perfect sense to me. If it doesn't make sense to you, that's okay too.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Speed: The word "free" doesn't mean that there were never material or labour costs to anyone, and that the item was magically created by fairy dust and wishes. It wouldn't have much use if it did.
All I'm saying is that if I decide to give you something without charging you for it, that's a different situation than if I decide to sell you something and you get the money from a source that was unwilling to give it to you.
They're not equivalent circumstances, and if someone wants to differentiate between them by using different words to describe them, it makes perfect sense to me. If it doesn't make sense to you, that's okay too.
Ah. You see, that was not the critique leveled against ketchupqueen. That critique was against her saying using the word "free" because
quote:No, the meds were not free. Somebody paid for them. Maybe not you, but somebody, somewhere did.
You can see that she clarified her use of the term immediately afterward, and it was to her use of the term "free" I was responding.
If she had been making a claim about a different matter (say, what you are making a claim about), then I would have had no comment about the later use of the word "free." However, as she used the word initially in the critique -- ""No, the meds were not free. Somebody paid for them. Maybe not you, but somebody, somewhere did." -- so the same critique applies [to using the word "free" in the context of drug company giving out "free" medications].
You are speaking of something that wasn't a part of that discussion at that time. I can see it is interesting and probably a fruitful line of inquiry, but I do not see how it relates to my post, or the ones I was responding to. But to your continuing to discuss it as a separate matter, I have no quibble.
---- Edited to reiterate: Mind you, I have no problem myself with either Belle or ketchupqueen using the word "free" in the contexts that they used the term. I also certainly have no problems with each of their families receiving those medications. On the contrary, I am quite glad about it for both cases.
My initial comment merely was that the critique of the use of "free" in one case would apply for the same reasons (namely, the reasons spelled out yet more clearly in the quotation above) in the other case.
I am concerned that my multiple quoting of Belle and the extended conversation with Speed about the terminology used in the discussion will read as jumping up and down on Belle for her comment, over and over. That would be horrible. I have quoted her multiple times in order to explain my initial comment, not to underscore a criticism of Belle.
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I guess we read her statement differently. When she said that "somebody paid for them," I was assuming that she meant somebody paid the seller for the drugs in order to complete the transaction. If she was including the seller's wholesale cost, or the labour of the people who mined the ore that was used in building the machinery that processed the medication at the manufacturing plant, then I guess you're right and both of the situations are the same under her definition. I'll leave it to her to clarify her intentions.
In any case, calling one of those drugs "free" and not the other makes sense to me regardless of what exactly was said, implied, or intended by the original post.
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quote:Originally posted by Speed: In any case, calling one of those drugs "free" and not the other makes sense to me regardless of what exactly was said, implied, or intended by the original post.
I'm sure it does.
As I said, I have no quibble with that at this time, as it is not the topic I was discussing. Please, do carry on.
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Edited to add in clarification:
quote:Originally posted by Speed: When she said that "somebody paid for them," I was assuming that she meant somebody paid the seller for the drugs in order to complete the transaction. If she was including the seller's wholesale cost, or the labour of the people who mined the ore that was used in building the machinery that processed the medication at the manufacturing plant, then I guess you're right and both of the situations are the same under her definition.
(I am working under the assumption that those costs were redistributed to other consumers or purchasers of products, thus recouping the outlay. I doubt that they were just absorbed by the seller [specifically, by the shareholders of the company], although I suppose it is possible. How wonderful if so!
Of note, AvidReader suggest that it may have come out of an advertising budget. How wonderful if that did not affect the other medications' prices whatsoever! It is a possibility.)
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I will bow out of the conversation since I probably don't have much substantive to add.
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) to keep the health care that we can not go without. Stephen's medication costs alone if paid out of pocket would total over $1000 a month. Add in monthly, sometimes semi-monthly, lab work and quarterly specialists visits and we'd be sunk deeper than we are now. And I hate it. I want to pay my bills. I want to have some left over to save, I want to have some to do something fun once in awhile. Sure it was our choice to have kids, but we didn't choose my son's heart problem and transplant. We didn't choose my daughters asthma. ![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
