The Recession and Layoffs Thread

[PrettySquareGal]

Speaking of health issues, I'm off to get some x-rayted pics. My first mammogram ever. Gals, get one annually!

 

[Patrick Murtha]

It has been tested and I stand by my statement.

Skyvue. The answer is yes it is up to you. If not you then who?

I would never say that attitude is not important. It's very important. It's gotten people through unimaginable awfulness. But everything? I don't see the world in such un-nuanced terms, sorry. It must be my advanced academic training in history and sociology, but I actually believe there are forces greater than individual will. Shocking, isn't it?

 

[jgilbert]

No one, and I mean NO ONE could possibly know every condition out there to see if it will be covered before getting a plan.[/QUOTE]

Are you saying that you did not read your policy to see what was and was not covered?

We have semi annual meetings to update all on our policy and its changes. Over half the meeting a Q and A

If you do not like the coverage provided by your employer opt out and get your own.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Are you for real? You're starting to sound like someone who is just trying to get a rise out of people.

No one, and I mean NO ONE could possibly know every condition out there to see if it will be covered before getting a plan.

I agree completely. I mean, if we could all foresee everything that might happen to us and make sure to be prepared for it, we could all sail through life without difficulties, no?

More knowledge is better than less knowledge, and more planning is better than less planning; no argument there. But it certainly does sound as if Decodence is trying to get a rise out of us.

However, since life has its own plans for every single one of us, I'll merely wish him and jgilbert well with their strategies. It must be something to be so all-knowing.

 

[scotrace]

Let's all allow for the sure and certain fact that each life has its own history, its own struggles and its own unique solutions. It is impossible and silly for any of us to make intercontinental judgments about other's decisions. Walk a mile in my shoes, make my decisions, feel my regrets, and we'll talk. Until then, respect for each individual's life journey, please.

And let's remember that this is not the place for political commentary.

 

[Foofoogal]

Your sanctimoniousness fools no one, except yourself.

How do you know I am phony. Not sure if I find it sad or comical.
Something about me makes you not care for me for some reason. Odd really. I am joining in a conversation and telling my opinion like I stated. IMHO means in my honest opinion.
Clone thinking is not honest or amusing IMHO.
I would ask why or what makes you come to this conclusion about me but I don't see the point.

I was just talking out of my hat and kidding about the research but I guess that is not allowed either. Lighten up or chill out would be my suggestion. IMHO.

sorry scotrace. i try to be civil. take it off if you need to.

 

[Justdog]

Lower taxes! Why should people send money to the Fed and then have to apply for assistance to get it back? That is just stupid! I am sorry that just does not make any sense to me.

Before anyone does the "luxuries" you should have 6 months or more in savings just to handle any oops that will come along. Pay yourself first!

Please folks do a budget, put each and evey dollar on paper and then follow it out the door. The only person you can blame for your money problems is the person in the mirror.

That is perfectly stated for most circumstances

 

[warbird]

Speaking of health issues, I'm off to get some x-rayted pics. My first mammogram ever. Gals, get one annually!

Prayer that all goes well.

 

[Paisley]

Let's all allow for the sure and certain fact that each life has its own history, its own struggles and its own unique solutions. It is impossible and silly for any of us to make intercontinental judgments about other's decisions. Walk a mile in my shoes, make my decisions, feel my regrets, and we'll talk. Until then, respect for each individual's life journey, please.

And let's remember that this is not the place for political commentary.

I can only add that I've found it a good practice to avoid saying anything online that I wouldn't say in person.

 

[AmateisGal]

Here's what bothers me - that you MUST have health insurance in this day and age or you could literally lose your house because of medical bills. We had the unthinkable happen to us - we got hit with a big medical emergency.

At my last job, I couldn't afford to put my husband on my insurance plan - so it was just my two children and I on my policy. Hubby is a vet (served in the first Gulf War) and was just getting the paperwork started so that he could get into the Veteran's Admin. healthcare program.

And then he got hit with a staph infection in his right arm. No insurance of any kind. He was in the hospital for nearly three weeks, had a wound vac on his arm for two months, had to be readmitted to the hospital for a secondary infection, had five surgeries (including a skin graf), intravenous antibiotics, etc. During this entire time, he was out of work and we were living on my income ($1600 for a family of four). We fell behind in our mortgage and everything else and were on the verge of foreclosure.

All total, the medical bills added up to $100,000. We had NO CHOICE but to seek Medicaid assistance. We qualified, thank the Lord, but still had a share of cost of around $5,000 to pay. And that is still a big chunk of change - at least for us. And hubby is still struggling to get back on his feet - he couldn't go back to his old job because the guy he worked for went to work for someone else. The job he did get paid him $8.50 an hour.

Here's the funny thing - on the doctor's bills, they gave us a break because we didn't have insurance. They even told us that if we had HAD insurance, they would have billed insurance for the full cost.

All this talk of what insurance will or won't cover, etc., is, to me, like trying to put a band aid on a broken leg. Why do you need insurance? Because healthcare COSTS so much. Period.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I know $200,000 per year executives whose lives would completely short out if they had to get by on the $75,000 that would seem more than adequate to you or me. They would die. So I find the jabber coming from some of those folks about how everyone should just put their shoulder to the wheel, etc., etc., rather laughable when you get right down to it. Many of them would be flat-out unable to cope with real economic adversity. And if they can cope with other kinds of adversity, it's often because their money enables them to.

I have no problem with wealth, or with conservative political views, either. But I do have a problem with cluelessness.

Precisely. My shoulder's been to the wheel since I was thirteen years old -- I dare say I've worked harder, and longer, for less return, than a lot of the folks who've thrown in their two cents in this thread. But hey, it's a lot easier to throw around platitudes and talking points than it is to face up to the fact that economic issues affect real people in ways that don't necessarily match up with what they teach in the textbooks.

But more to the point, what bothers me most is the willingness to generalize about the life habits of an entire class of people based on what might have seen or heard about one or two or ten people doing. Such a habit is the root of the rawest, rottenest sort of bigotry -- but while racism and sexism have become socially unacceptable, it seems that classism is all too alive and well.

By the views of some here, I would have been deemed "welfare trash" as a kid, because that's how I grew up. But I like to think that, as an individual, I would deserve more respect than that. I'd like to think that anyone growing up today in the situation I grew up in would deserve that respect. Unfortunately, I doubt that they actually would get it.

 

[Justdog]

Canadian

Insurance is pooled risk. You buy it, hoping you will never need it. You took the risk you wouldn't get some non-covered condition, and lost.

I assume you read, and understood your benefits before hand.


Hey, premium care and coverage isn't cheap. Riders exist for a reason, to supplement existing benefits. As I said, they are pretty darn cheap.


Part of their compensation package. There is a $ value attached to said coverage. Now, if you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait till you see how expensive it will be when it is "free".

Ohh yes Canadian Ontario health care/ free?

The majority of basic services in the free Health care system here are having to be paid for. Eye Exams Driver medicals and on top of that this Gov just indroduced a 600 dollar average premium on the end of your income tax that circumvents all collective agreements.

It basically takes the refund of the middle class worker before it is even issued thus saving the printing cost of the federal refund check.

In addition there is an area where you can voluntarily donate your refund they just took or if you have a few bucks left over to reduce the provincial debt, hee hee.

I would be ameniable to privatization and after reading these posts be real careful about the coverages..

 

[Foofoogal]

LizzieMaine.
I have always liked you from your posts and think I would really like you in real person. You just strike me as a hardworker period.

It is hard to speak online as we don't see body language.

I was what one would consider poor white trash but we didn't know it till we moved to the big city. lol
It is just that somewhere along the line I got a lightbulb moment that some of the poor trash I was hanging around were just flat snobs. They talked about rich people being snobs and I saw them as total snobs to rich people. All rich people were blah, blah, blah. Goes both ways.
I do know it colored my outlook and when I started looking at people for who they were I was better for it.
I feel just as sorry for monetarily poor but just as sorry for people who have riches but nothing else.

Oh also. In the end no matter your station in life none of us will bring a cracker with us when we go.

 

[Decodence]

Here's the funny thing - on the doctor's bills, they gave us a break because we didn't have insurance. They even told us that if we had HAD insurance, they would have billed insurance for the full cost.
.

Most doctors know enough to not try to get blood from a turnip. They'll work with the patient to get what they think they can. Also, they may BILL full price to the ins., but they'll be lucky to see $0.50-0.60 on the dollar for services depending on procedure and Dx. All depends on a combination of fee schedule, % of billed, per diem, etc.

 

[AmateisGal]

Most doctors know enough to not try to get blood from a turnip. They'll work with the patient to get what they think they can. Also, they may BILL full price to the ins., but they'll be lucky to see $0.50-0.60 on the dollar for services depending on procedure and Dx. All depends on a combination of fee schedule, % of billed, per diem, etc.

Which still begs the question: why charge so much?

 

[Decodence]

Which still begs the question: why charge so much?

If you spent 10 years in school at $40k+/yr tuition, got by on stipends, and whatever you could scratch out while doing residency, then have to repay all those exhorbitant student loans and carry COSTLY malpractice insurance due to sue happy patients and idiotic jury awards, wouldn't you want to get paid accordingly?

 

[nobodyspecial]

No one, and I mean NO ONE could possibly know every condition out there to see if it will be covered before getting a plan.

Are you saying that you did not read your policy to see what was and was not covered?

We have semi annual meetings to update all on our policy and its changes. Over half the meeting a Q and A

If you do not like the coverage provided by your employer opt out and get your own.[/QUOTE]

In the case of medical coverage it's not simply a matter of understanding that a physical is covered 100% and a prescription is $45, but a lack of medical knowledge as to what can possibly go wrong with one's body. Never head of disease X and where does disease X fall onto the coverage tables? It's not like car insurance where you have an accident you have collision coverage or you don't. A human body is simply far too complicated, and non-medical people far too uneducated to understand what disease you may get and what the insurnace ramifications may be. Medical people may understand the disease, but are equally clueless as to the insurance ramifications.

I've been through the dental vs. medical issue before. Oral surgery should be medical, but referred by a dentist (why go to a medical doctor for a problem with your teeth?) insurance won't cover cost due to detist referral and not a doctor, ............ We went around for two years before the situation got straightened out as to who owed the clinic for the services. In the mean time the clinic had to wait for two years to get paid.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Prayer that all goes well.

Thank you. I think it takes a week to get the results. But I will tell you that it hurt like a (insert bad words here). Seriously...

(By the way, I learned that men can get breast cancer, too!)

 

[Decodence]

A human body is simply far too complicated, and non-medical people far too uneducated to understand what disease you may get and what the insurnace ramifications may be. Medical people may understand the disease, but are equally clueless as to the insurance ramifications.

People should really just become educated to the fact that even the top-tier of employer health plans usually is bottom of the barrel coverage. One should explore the additional riders out there, and consider the C:B ratio of them. Not trying to enrage here, merely lobby for being an educated consumer.

I've been through the dental vs. medical issue before. Oral surgery should be medical, but referred by a dentist (why go to a medical doctor for a problem with your teeth?) insurance won't cover cost due to detist referral and not a doctor, ............ We went around for two years before the situation got straightened out as to who owed the clinic for the services. In the mean time the clinic had to wait for two years to get paid.

Why would they even perform the procedure without a prior auth?

 

[Decodence]

Thank you. I think it takes a week to get the results. But I will tell you that it hurt like a (insert bad words here). Seriously...

So I've heard from the wifey. I do not envy her, nor you.

(By the way, I learned that men can get breast cancer, too!)

Yes, they can (thought this was common knowledge).