Quote from: CindyJames on January 28, 2009, 03:24:56 AM
I don't understand the health insurance system in the USA, but it doesn't cover you?
In Australia if it's judged a medical need it's covered to some extent.
Sorry Girls, 
I have a spare bedroom for refugees
Cindy J
Post Merge: January 28, 2009, 03:27:01 AM
And a set of steak knives 
the overall health insurance "system" in the U.S. is a Faux free market.
You have most of the people who are covered covered by private insurance, almost all of it provided through employers (since the 40s when the Government made it financially advantageous to offer health benefits instead of higher pay)
Over the last ocouple of decades more and more of the private insurance has moved into "managed" health care which brings a sort of "mass market" pressure to bear. that is, an HMO will negotiate favorable rates with certain providers in exchange for driving their covered persons towards those providers en mass.
This follows a pattern established by Medicare (Gov healthcare for older folks) of pressuring providers to cat their charge.
Medicaid follows along in a similar fashion.
All this pressure on SOME procedures mean providers have to make up costs in the OTHER procedures.
On top of all this, since no consumer pays for his medical care first hand (well, a few do but not enough to matter) there actually isn't a fre market at all since people have no incentive to be wise consumers. thus they misuse and over use the available services which drives up the cost of insurance which in turn creates more pressure upon providers to keep costs down.
Furthermore, the cost of more burdensome regulation, the cost of legal protection from the lawsuit of the hour, and the cost of drugs (driven up in the U.S. because other countries cap drug prices which means they have to recoup their loses from Americans) All factor in.
The upshot of all this is that about every choice that has been made regarding health care has been made wrong and almost every solution to said problems is doing more of the same and hoping it gets better.
But as it applies to us - what is covered and what isn't is entirely up to the coverage provider and it's VERY rare for an insurer to cover SRS or related treatment and as far as I know the only time the government pays for it is for some prisoners (a crazy mixed up story all it's own)
I know the popular cry is for single payer state funded health care like many other nations have but there are a lot of horror stories about delayed care and arbitrary decisions and so forth that don't give me any faith in that.
I think medical savings accounts of some sort would be the way to go but that said...
If ObamaCare means I get SRS on the taxpayers dime, I'll darn sure sign up!
