Quote Originally Posted by Beirut View Post
It was a PBS documentary hosted by Walter Cronkite. (C'mon, I mean, Walter Cronkite.)
Oh since it was on PBS it must be completely truthful? Sorry for being so calous but I find that arguement just goofy.

Insurance compnaies cut off people all the time, and it is not always illegal. Not by a long shot. it's part of their standard operations.
Again I have read of similiar decisions being made by Socialized Medical programs. Do you wish me to cite them. Here is one.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle4040146.ece

Personal responsibility? She was in her Round 2 of a brain tumour. Unless she slept with her head in a microwave I don't see how personal responsibility comes into play.
Personal responsibility for pursueing treatment that she believed was vital. Just going home to die because the insurance company said so - smacks of not taking any personal responsibility to get your health care. Again sounds calous but when an insurance company tells me no - I find out who is the next individual in the chain and so forth until I get an answer. If the answer is still no, I make the problem public and get public pressure applied to both the Insurance Company and the Hospital. So before complaining that the system failed - one should be able to understand the whole picture. This we don't know now do we?


According to the documentary, her condition was treatable but the insurance company was still within its legal rights to say go home and die.
Again what are all the circumstances around the condition and the denial of coverage. Again I can point out and cite articals that say the same about Socialized Medicine


I have had a great deal of experience with our health care system. I know of no outright refusals of care. Both my parents had brain cancer, fatal in both cases, but they were cared for from the first day until the last day (about a year for my father and maybe nine months for my mother) and we were never asked for one red cent.
Got a great deal of experience with the United States health care system - I have never been denied medical treatment regardless of my ability to pay. Even busted my shoulder once when I was a young man without Insurance - and guess what I still got treated and worked out a deal with the Hospital to pay 40% of the bill. Sorry Beruit for your loss.

The established programs you mentioned, IMHO, are insufficient. And I will continue to say that social programs, especially ones of such import, require a human element in their structure and management.
Did I say they didnt have a human element in their structure and management? One accepts that a bit of fraud, waste and abuse will happen given the human element - what one shouldn't accept is the levels in our current systems. As stated before a significant portion of the budget goes to these programs - a significant bit of data that you seem to ignore in your cruscade to convince Americans to adopt Socialized Medicine.

They will one sunny day.
And when the American voters decide that is what they want - then the government will be forced to make the necessary changes - to include hopefully revamping the other social programs so that Socialized Medicine can be funded.

Yeah, but if the program they have now is no good and they won't fix it, and you won't vote in a new program, that kind of puts you in the corner, doesn't it.
The failure of politicians and the people to discuss and fix the third rail political issues is a major problem in the nation. I to hope someday Americans force the government to actually address issues versus the continued whitewashing of them.

Third rail politics are the only ones we like to discuss here. All else is shmoo.
But then we are not politicans.