Does a person's access to health care should necessarily be tied to their ability to pay for services?

Question

Doesn't that create huge inequality over who get's what level of services resulting in richer=healthier, poorer=unhealthy?

Is a poorer person less deserving of health care?

Answer 1

What you get out of life may not be what you deserve but more of what you earn.

Every service demand payment either in cash or in kind.

Whether you like it or not the rich will always get the best things of life . The poor will remain on the poor side of life until they learn to think and to do as the rich. There will never be a time that the two will be treated alike in life. Even in heaven there is no equal reward to all. You earn what you get.

Answer 2

In America the public doesn't believe access to essential health care services should be tied to income which is why:

we have more medical charities than other countries

we created Medicaid, Medicare, and SCHIP with good intentions and bad results (ask the working poor about being able to afford Medicaid--honest reporters are usually denied unless they've already been bankrupted by huge bills)

some docs do free or reduced treatment of patients

there is an HRSA provision which includes even dental care

"Health Centers provide health and dental care to people of all ages, whether or not they have health insurance or the money to pay for health care.  

Find the Health Center closest to you



  

Hill-Burton Free & Reduced Cost Care at hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities are required to provide a specific amount of free or below cost health care to people unable to pay. Eligibility is based on the size of your family and your income. You apply for Hill-Burton care at the facility where you were or will be treated.  

More about Hill-Burton and find facilities in your State"

http://www.hrsa.gov/help/default.htm

That said, the present system is under the misguided control of the government and large insurers which are the cause of high prices. There is ONE comprehensive, voluntary plan that would address well over 90% of all problems, but no one wants to discuss it as it doesn't have the magic UHC letters attached to it--it's better than any UHC plan as it provides essentials and prevents most ABUSE which DOES occur.

Read Dr. Gratzer's The Cure for a lot of good answers with good info sources on why UHC has never worked anywhere it's been tried. Not so keen on his solution however. Cassandra Nathan also does an excellent job of explaining what is wrong with US health care (primarily government meddling and abuse by large insurers) in Save America, Save the World. She has the best plan hands down for fixing the system--it's comprehensive, voluntary, free-market, and provides all the NECESSARY health care without breaking the back of the taxpayer and while stopping a myriad of abuses in the system because it is the abuses which have driven costs up.

Nathan's plan is here:

http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm...

it has a way to reform the system--logically:

enforce CONTRACT law--right now too many legit claims are denied by companies with impunity because paying what they OWE would be "expensive"--see http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPe... for one person who came clean on just that subject

enforce ANTITRUST law--in about half the 300 major markets there is one large insurer who CONTROLS the market and basically sets prices including what we taxpayers fork over for Medicaid, etc.

Nathan would require PRICE TRANSPARENCY which no honest man need fear or should object to. All those prices HIDDEN from the patient in the computer--let us see them NOW. We should shop around, especially the uninsured. The only game you can play where you get to charge whatever you FEEL like AFTER THE FACT instead of providing honest info up front. There's a MAJOR cause of bankruptcies right there. More than half the bankruptcies are over medical bills AND 75% of those folks HAVE insurance.

Nathan would also like to offer up a plan that stops the hemorraghing of taxpayer money and FIX the broken systems of Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP and END the problem of the uninsured and more importantly the uninsurABLE (folks who can't get insurance at ANY price). It's a VOLUNTARY, NO fines, NO employer mandates, NO new taxes on people.

It's catastrophic care PLUS. The plus is that EVERYONE on the plan gets:

a physical with follow up each year for a co-pay. They can have discounted prescription meds. They can have one NEEDED ER visit (ending ER abuse is important) per year with co-pay. Better than the other plans out there by far.

It's AFFORDABLE. How? Means-tested with a sliding fee scale--no way you can't afford it. The co-pays are based on what you can afford. The CATASTROPHIC LEVEL is also set by that. The working poor may only be able to shell out $2K in a year on med expenses--THEN the insurance would kick in. Someone making good money might have to shell out $10K before it kicked in. It's fair because it's going to save the well-off anyway because now they get robbed with every paycheck for BS like Medicaid which leaves lots of folks with NO coverage options and sends them into bankruptcy which COSTS US ALL.

Also by catching things early, which WOULD happen with a physical each year, we'll cut costs.

By making people pay their own way UNLESS and UNTIL they hit a catastrophic level of med expense, the nonsense of running to the doc for the sniffles or the ER for a stubbed toe ENDS because they have to pay for that themselves. This happens now with people who either have overly generous insurance plans or with illegals who use the ER as a doctor's office and because of spineless administrators, the abuse continues. Spineless administrators because federal law requires LIFE THREATENING conditions to be treated and stabilized without regard to payment. It does NOT, NOT, NOT say that any jerk who shows up at the ER and says "my toe hurts" gets seen at an ER. It is misapplied that way all the time, but that is the FAULT of spineless fools. Once the nonsense stops--or the administrator has to pay for that so it WILL stop--we'll see a reduction in who is going to the ER.

Then and this is KEY: Nathan says we need to greatly increase the number of doctors, nurses, and other allied health care professionals in the US. Right now we IDIOTICALLY turn away THOUSANDS of well-qualified students for NO good reason at all--then we rely on 25% of our RESIDENCIES to be filled by grads of foreign med schools--STEALING students from poor countries who provided those people with a free to them ed in many cases. They now get NOTHING for that expense they can ill afford.

Because of this we DENY a legit ed to qualified students in the US as well by relying on the fact that we will always have thousands of foreign med students who want to live HERE instead of their home country.

Just stupid as well as immoral.

Nathan's plan if implemented as she describes it would likely address more than 90% of ALL the problems with health care in the US and drop prices substantially. And ALL legit docs and facilities are automatically ON the plan so patients can see the doc or go to the facility of their choice. Funding IS explained.

This is the only plan I've seen that deals with human nature--some people are users and takers and they waste our limited resources--if they have to pay, that behaviour will decrease--if it's "free" to them, the rest of us will work ourselves into an early grave to support their nonsense. When they waste the resources they also ensure those with LEGIT problems have to wait and wait or be denied care as well. Nathan sees to it that the PURPOSE of insurance--preventing bankruptcy--is maintained. She also sees to it that the care people need IS available without breaking their banks. The genuinely ill will finally, for the FIRST time, get the care they need without worrying about going broke. I'm talking about people with SERIOUS problems, not someone who breaks his leg or has an emergency appendectomy--they'll live even under this system we have now.

Nathan's plan is fairer than any other I've seen.

IF we were foolish enough to go with UHC, through insurers, as so many want, what about this:

http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPe...

UHC is RATIONED and BANKRUPT and there is NO reason with more than 50 years of it existing to believe the most vulnerable won't be killed.

Answer 3

Well lets see, my access to food, housing, transportation, clothing, phone service etc.... are all linked to my ability to pay for them. In the REAL WORLD why would health care not be included. Are the poor less deserving of food, housing etc..

Answer 4

The problem is that money doesn't appear from thin air.  It would certainly be nice that those without the money can get equal care. However, it isn't right to make people pay for health care of anyone else other than themselves and their own family.

I've yet to see a valid solution that addresses all sides of the issue. The best path to go in my opinion is to promote affordable pricing of health care.

Answer 5

I'm all for affordable health care, but I felt like I'd entered a parallel universe halfway through reading that question.