My employer's insurance is free for individuals. ~$300/mo. comes out of my pay for the family plan to cover my two kids. That is for top-of-the-line, premium insurance -- just about every doctor I could dream of is covered, and if not, then 80% is covered as an "out-of-network" expense. That covers optical, dental and psychiatric, too. It even covers marriage counseling! Of course, there are much cheaper plans available, but I want to make sure my family is taken care of.
That price is no biggie, really. When I was insuring my family under my own business I was paying about $1100/mo. for me, two kids and a wife. Larger corporations regularly negotiate much better deals than that for health insurance. Of course that is all tax-deductible, and I easily offset the cost of insurance by working harder and making more money
.
I sure don't mind paying for private health insurance, considering that the alternative is a nightmare of higher taxes to pay for a crappy socialized medicine system,
PLUS the private supplemental insurance that I'll need to purchase in order to get REAL medical care just in case I ever really need it (for something other than a runny nose or a broken arm) under a socialized system.
It just seems like the latest crop of Democrats have managed to convince a whole lot of people that our healthcare system is broken, when it works just fine for the vast majority of hard-working Americans, and it provides research, testing and cures for the rest of the world, as well. We're not exactly hearing about all the developments in cancer treatment coming from Canada. Of course, anybody who's ever heard of cancer is familiar with Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC, the Mayo Clinic in MN, Dana-Farber in Boston, Duke in NC, and many other fine American treatment centers where people are regularly cured of rare and obscure types of cancer (for the semantically challenged, I'll use the term "durable remission" meaning no signs of cancer in the body for more than 5 years from treatment).
Americans who can't afford private health insurance already have the socialized Medicare and Medicaid systems, which are perfect examples of a government-run socialized-medicine debacle. Most old folks I know on social security and Medicare also have supplemental private insurance because they know that the government will only pay for the cheapest base level of care. I'm sick and tired of hearing the old "but I earn too much for Medicaid" argument, too. In NJ a family of four can earn up to $83,500 a year and still qualify for Medicaid. That's pretty damned liberal if you ask me.
I really don't see the problem with having to work to get something provided to you. Is it really fair that some crack-head welfare freak should have access to the same doctors as hard-working people? Should the hard-working people also have to wait on line while the crack-heads tie up the socialized system with their chronic, self-induced health issues, too? Granted, children cannot control who their parents are, or how hard they work, so the government should mandate that their parents provide them with health insurance until they are able to pay for it themselves. Just like car insurance, if you get caught having children who are uninsured, you should be subjected to penalties and imprisonment. That would be a great incentive to get irresponsible low-life parents to either do the right thing, or stop having children they cannot afford.
Successful private hospitals in NYC also get huge sums of money from wealthy former patients who leave large portions of their estates to the hospitals who helped improve their lives. I guess some people appreciate a good thing when they have it.
Go to a "city" hospital anywhere and you'll learn what socialized medicine is all about.
I visited the ER at Holy Name Hospital (yes, a real nice, private hospital) in Teaneck, NJ for a fall I had on Saturday. I was seen by a Nurse Practitioner within 5 minutes. I was seen by a doctor within 20 minutes. I was examined, treated with anti-inflammatory, Tetanus shot, X-rays and released within 2 hours. $20 co-pay.
Ain't gonna do better than that anywhere in the world. Maybe you'll match it for the simple stuff like swollen hands and bruised bones, but I'd still rather get treated for cancer in New York than Toronto.
Go to a City Hospital in NY and see how long you wait and unless you are on welfare you are not getting away with a $14.00 out of pocket! They have a much better system in Canada and most other civilized countries. The Insurance Companies are ruining health care in the US. They are bigger robber barons than the oil companies. 3 Hospitals in Westchester have closed in the last 5 years.
I have a co worker who was treated for a complicated Cancer in his neck and he is fine. He was diagnosed on a Monday and operated on the next day. His chemo and radiation started immediately. He paid nothing out of pocket. Canada and the US have a reciprical on medical licenses. A Doctor from Canada can practice in the U.S. and vice versa.
Twenty years ago Canadian were coming to the US in fair numbers, now they are not since they have a better life under the Canadian system. My Brother runs a Hospital in Upstate NY, he wants universal healthcare since the current system is broken.
How much you have to pay a year to have that $20 copay?
