Why Can’t a Better Health Care Plan Be the Next Stimulus? [Archive]

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FORD

07-09-2009, 02:05 PM

Published on Thursday, July 9, 2009 by Firedoglake
Why Can’t a Better Health Care Plan Be the Next Stimulus?

by Jane Hamsher

We bailed out the banks to the tune of 2 trillion dollars in the past year, put through an enormous stimulus bill, bailed out the European banks, put through yet another war supplemental, and never asked how we were going to pay for it. We just wrote a bunch of big checks.

But now that it has come to taking care of the health of Americans, well, we have to tighten the old belt and it's suddenly "pay-as-you-go."

Everyone is obsessed about "how we're going to pay for this" when discussing health care. And as long as we're prisoners of a CBO score (is it $1 trillion? $1.4 trillion?) we're going to wind up passing a bill that does not cover average Americans in the way they need to be covered so that as a country we can step forward into a new business era of international economic interdependence. Other industrialized nations cover health care. We're saddling business with that cost, and a huge chunk of what we are planning to spend will go to bail out insurance companies.

Meanwhile, just as Krugman and others predicted, White House aides are saying we need another stimulus plan. Joe Biden and Steny Hoyer have sent up trial balloons.

Middle class Americans pay huge premiums every month for junk insurance. Four hundred, six hundred, a thousand dollars a month easily. Even if they have employer-based insurance, huge deductibles mean that every trip to the doctor is costly. If those costs get cut, a huge financial burden is lifted off average Americans. They are no longer prisoners of a job, or a state, just to keep an insurance policy they can't leave without risking their economic security or their health.

But more importantly, a huge burden of anxiety is lifted from Americans in a time of economic insecurity. If a plan is passed that only affects the poor, it's going to anger the middle class when they are the ones that get shafted once again. It's only going to increase anger and frustration that there is nobody at the helm who cares about them, and confirm their fears that government exists to benefit Wellpoint at their expense.

I was up on the Hill yesterday, and discovered that Congress never had ordinary people come and testify about their insurance company horror stories, because nobody wanted to piss the insurance companies off. It was incomprehensible and outrageous.

Compared to the huge sums we've shelled out without batting an eyelash over the past year, why are we going to have a shitty, compromised plan just so Blanche Lincoln and Olympia Snowe can achieve their objectives of protecting insurance company profits, when for $30 billion more a year we could actually do it right? Why is that suddenly such a big price tag?

In short, if we need more economic stimulus, why aren't we talking about health care as economic stimulus?

© 2009 Firedoglake

Jane Hamsher is the founder of firedoglake.com. Her work has also appeared on The Daily Beat, AlterNet, The Nation and The American Prospect.

Article printed from Common Dreams | News & Views (http://www.CommonDreams.org)
URL to article: Why Canâ€™t a Better Health Care Plan Be the Next Stimulus? | CommonDreams.org (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/09-9)

FORD

07-09-2009, 02:05 PM

http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/files/images/p16SinglePayerStimulusv01.jpg

bueno bob

07-09-2009, 02:21 PM

I sent a letter to the White House stating the same. It seems unfortunate to me that special interests (read: insurance companies) are using their considerable pull to influence things here. I can tell you very well how we can "pay for it" - slashing military spending. By taking the appropriate amount of funding from military spending, we could afford universal health care and STILL be far and away the strongest active military on the planet (and please, don't try to tell me otherwise...the numbers simply do not lie).

Mr. Obama has an almost unprecedented opportunity to make a tremendous difference in the lives of all American citizens. I certainly hope he acts on it and doesn't fall into the trap of being swayed by corporate interests.

letsrock

07-09-2009, 02:56 PM

It will be the congress that will do nothing.

letsrock

07-09-2009, 02:57 PM

because nobody cares about the middle class, but those of us that are part of it.

standin

07-09-2009, 03:00 PM

I wish she would have worded that title:

Health Care should be the next economic stimulus.

The way it's written sounds like the complainer complaining about cheep club owners not doing him what he wants.

letsrock

07-09-2009, 03:04 PM

That would of been a better title.

Seshmeister

07-09-2009, 03:22 PM

standin

07-09-2009, 03:55 PM

You know you've reached middle age when you start writing letters... :):hitch:

That is sooooooo not true. I wrote my first letter to a government official at 17.

sadaist

07-09-2009, 04:16 PM

Why Can’t a Better Health Care Plan Be the Next Stimulus?

Because there should not be another stimulus.

Blackflag

07-09-2009, 04:55 PM

Why are you asking us? Shouldn't you be asking Obama and the Supermajority Congress? :hee:

I'll bet you a beer that there's no health care bill passed at all this year, let alone single-payer.

ELVIS

07-09-2009, 06:11 PM

:hitch:

I wrote my first letter to a government official at 17.

I bet they got a kick out outta that...BTW, who was president at the time ??

Anyway...

WE DO NOT NEED AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE A SECONG FUCKING STIMULUS!!!

:barf:

standin

07-09-2009, 07:56 PM

Not sure who the president was, I wrote a judge.
Wasn't that big a deal. I was studying ran across a list of judges and wrote a letter telling him what I thought of crime, corruption and of him and his kind. I am sure it never got there. I would have been hunted down like a biscuit eating dog. Well, more that I was....

ELVIS

07-09-2009, 09:20 PM

Liar...

bueno bob

07-10-2009, 12:28 AM

You know you've reached middle age when you start writing letters... :)

...and when you know whether or not they'll even be read, lmao...

standin

07-10-2009, 01:58 AM

Liar...

Jesus! that's some strong words, you think I WASN"T a punk kid?

ELVIS

07-10-2009, 02:29 AM

Is english your first language ??

Jesus Christ

07-10-2009, 02:40 AM

Why do people in thy country think that ye should pay corporations for health care. I healed many people from sickness, even raised a few from the dead, and verily, I charged them not.

ELVIS

07-10-2009, 02:42 AM

Don't make me throw up...

Jesus Christ

07-10-2009, 02:45 AM

Gregory, ye hath been called into this line of work thyself, have ye not? Why would ye not want thy country's healthcare to be the best possible for thy people?

ELVIS

07-10-2009, 02:59 AM

ELVIS

07-10-2009, 03:04 AM

Why would ye not want thy country's healthcare to be the best possible for thy people?

That is not the intent of the Government and it's not their place to make these decisions...

The US government is WAY WAY WAY out of hand...

They don't know the first thing about big or small buisness...

The only reason they are interested in healthcare is bacause BIG PHARMA has control of them...

PERIOD!

:elvis:

Jesus Christ

07-10-2009, 03:30 AM

It's already not, it's controlled by big pharma...

You can't imagine how many times a doctor may order this or that drug, only for the pharmacy to call the nurse (me) and say the insurance does not cover that, and then the nurse calls the doctor back, pisses him or her off, and they either cancel the order or prescribe something else...

It's all bullshit...

The government will NEVER make it better, it's not possible...

In thy example, it is the insurance company that causes the problem. And verily, this would not be the case with a single payer system, because the insurer would be Caesar, er so to speak.

The pharma-sorcerers also have too much power, but the issue being debated in thy country is about the insurance industry. Single payer would cast them out entirely. The public option spoken of by thy President, and by Howard whose surname is Dean, would allow Caesar to compete with these companies, and eventually nobody would remain with the corporate servants of Satan, for the very reasons ye hath described.

Hey, I'm the "Great Physician", right? I gotta keep up to date on this stuff :jesuslol:

ELVIS

07-10-2009, 03:38 AM

ELVIS

07-10-2009, 03:42 AM

In health bill, billions for parks, paths and all kinds of BULLSHIT!

Supporters cite prevention, but add-ons’ critics see pork

By Michael Kranish (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/07/09/in_health_bill_billions_for_parks_paths/)

July 9, 2009

Sweeping healthcare legislation working its way through Congress is more than an effort to provide insurance to millions of Americans without coverage. Tucked within is a provision that could provide billions of dollars for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers’ markets.

Critics argue the provision is a thinly disguised effort to insert pork-barrel spending into a bill that has been widely portrayed to the public as dealing with expanding health coverage and cutting medical costs. A leading critic, Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, ridicules the local projects, asking: “How can Democrats justify the wasteful spending in this bill?’’

But advocates, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, defend the proposed spending as a necessary way to promote healthier lives and, in the long run, cut medical costs. “These are not public works grants; they are community transformation grants,’’ said Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Kennedy, chairman of the Senate health committee whose healthcare bill includes the projects.

“If improving the lighting in a playground or clearing a walking path or a bike path or restoring a park are determined as needed by a community to create more opportunities for physical activity, we should not prohibit this from happening,’’ Coley said in a statement.

The Senate health panel’s bill does not specify how much would go to the community projects. A Senate staff member said the amount of spending will be left up to the Obama administration. A House version of the bill caps the projects at $1.6 billion per year and includes them in a section designed to save money in the long run by reducing obesity and other health problems.

It is not clear yet how the money would be allocated. The legislation says that grants will be awarded to local and state government agencies that will have to submit detailed proposals. The final decisions will be made by the secretary of Health and Human Services.

The proposal was inserted at the urging of a nonprofit, nonpartisan group called Trust for America’s Health, which produces reports about obesity and other health matters. Part of the group’s proposed language for the community grants was inserted into the Senate bill. It called for “creating the infrastructure to support active living and access to nutritious foods in a safe environment.’’ The group provided examples of grants for bike paths, jungle gyms, and lighting, though the Senate bill doesn’t list those specifics.

Jeffrey Levi, the group’s executive director, said that “it is easy to satirize’’ the projects, but they are needed to improve America’s health.

:elvis:

standin

07-10-2009, 10:52 AM

Is english your first language ??

No, teta, it isn't. It is my second time around language.

Is this your first visit to Earth?

letsrock

07-10-2009, 03:19 PM

I bet they got a kick out outta that...BTW, who was president at the time ??

Anyway...

WE DO NOT NEED AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE A SECONG FUCKING STIMULUS!!!

:barf:

Bill Clinton.

Nickdfresh

07-10-2009, 08:06 PM

Why are you asking us? Shouldn't you be asking Obama and the Supermajority Congress? :hee:

I'll bet you a beer that there's no health care bill passed at all this year, let alone single-payer.

I don't think there will be either, but I wouldn't have a problem with that necessarily. I think whatever comes about should be considered over a couple of years...

Nickdfresh

07-10-2009, 08:10 PM

ELVIS

07-10-2009, 10:13 PM

:mad0233:

standin

07-10-2009, 11:08 PM

People safely exercising more and eating readily available, cheaper fresh produce. How horrible!

That would be great, IF the produce and stock had high nutritions and not hormonally altered. :umm:

Jesus Christ

07-10-2009, 11:17 PM

Verily..... ye should eat vegetables the way We created them, and not the MonSatan variety.

standin

07-10-2009, 11:22 PM

You know, Jesus, I should know who hits friday night evening and gets prophetical, but I forget...
I did not know prophetical was a word. However for those that did not know either, I spelled it correct the first run~

Blackflag

07-10-2009, 11:45 PM

I don't think there will be either, but I wouldn't have a problem with that necessarily. I think whatever comes about should be considered over a couple of years...

I don't have a problem with it, either. And I think this is hardly the time to be borrowing yet more money for a health care fiasco.

I'm just waiting for the meltdown when the Obama people realize what their hero really is... but some people probably never will face that reality. :)

ELVIS

07-10-2009, 11:50 PM

Nickdfresh

07-11-2009, 04:23 AM

I don't have a problem with it, either. And I think this is hardly the time to be borrowing yet more money for a health care fiasco.

Okay. I don't disagree to a point and let me make that clear...

But just what should be borrow money for? To fund a defense, military-industrial establishment that largely develops technologies to defend us against (in the future) the Chinese we're borrowing from?

I'm just waiting for the meltdown when the Obama people realize what their hero really is... but some people probably never will face that reality. :)

And why is that? So we all say we should have voted for a hypocritical semi-libertarian ex-doctor turned politician?

Blackflag

07-11-2009, 03:08 PM

Okay. I don't disagree to a point and let me make that clear...

But just what should be borrow money for? To fund a defense, military-industrial establishment that largely develops technologies to defend us against (in the future) the Chinese we're borrowing from?

Neither. When you're nearing bankruptcy, there may be a few strategic things that you do borrow and spend on...because it will help pull you back from the brink...but it's neither of those. So I think the answer is to stop borrowing altogether right now.

And why is that? So we all say we should have voted for a hypocritical semi-libertarian ex-doctor turned politician?

No, people can vote for whomever they like. But don't vote for another career politician corporate puppet, then tell yourself he's anything other than that. Let's keep it real. Obama=McCain. That's all I'm saying, and that's what I said during the campaign.

Nickdfresh

07-11-2009, 07:17 PM

Neither. When you're nearing bankruptcy, there may be a few strategic things that you do borrow and spend on...because it will help pull you back from the brink...but it's neither of those. So I think the answer is to stop borrowing altogether right now.

Great. Something that would result in economic chaos and would never work in such unilateral terms....

No, people can vote for whomever they like. But don't vote for another career politician corporate puppet, then tell yourself he's anything other than that. Let's keep it real. Obama=McCain. That's all I'm saying, and that's what I said during the campaign.

You see. That's were that argument is complete bullshit. Because I recall hearing from those on the left and the libertarian right that there was no difference between Gore and Bush or Bush and McCain in 2000.

I think the launching of a massive, under-planned fiasco in Iraq has vindicated my belief that presidents and the policies they choose are very different...

ELVIS

07-11-2009, 08:55 PM

There's no difference between any of them except for Obama being less than half black, less than half a century of age and less than half the man Poofta Putin is...

:biggrin:

Blackflag

07-11-2009, 09:47 PM

Great. Something that would result in economic chaos and would never work in such unilateral terms....

If you think that stopping deficit spending for a few years would result in "economic chaos," then there's no reasoning with you. Bear in mind that even if you stopped borrowing right now, it would still leave us deep in debt for years to come. That's no economic chaos, that's a solution to the problem.

You see. That's were that argument is complete bullshit. Because I recall hearing from those on the left and the libertarian right that there was no difference between Gore and Bush or Bush and McCain in 2000.

I think the launching of a massive, under-planned fiasco in Iraq has vindicated my belief that presidents and the policies they choose are very different...

Bush and Gore are irrelevant anymore. Today, we're talking about Obama, the current president. And he hasn't done anything so far that McCain wouldn't have done. They're both hack politicians, bought and paid for.

Seshmeister

07-12-2009, 07:31 PM

No, the problem is that some of the medications cost thousands of dollars in no time...

Take Zyvox for instance, a new antibiotic to treat pneunomia and other things...it costs nearly $3000 for two weeks. Insurance won't pay for it. Who's gonna get the bill ??

Forgive him Father, for this dumbass knows not what he's talking about...

:elvis:

I looked this one up.

Zyvox is freely available in the UK and can be prescribed by your hospital or by your family doctor. So how come the UK can afford it but you say the US can't?

Interestingly although its obviously free to the patient for 2 weeks supply our system is only charged $1400. So either your figure is wrong or it's yet another example of people in the US getting screwed by the drug companies.

Finally a quick calculation shows that if the US had spent the Iraq war money on Zyvox then there would be enough to put you on it for 40 million years. Or enough for 2 billion courses of 2 week treatments.

ELVIS

07-12-2009, 09:30 PM

I know my figure is correct. I was quoted this price by a pharmacist which required me to obtain administrative approval prior to completing the order...

ELVIS

07-12-2009, 09:31 PM

Zyvox is freely available in the UK and can be prescribed by your hospital or by your family doctor. So how come the UK can afford it but you say the US can't?

I do not know. Artifically inflated cost ??

FORD

07-12-2009, 11:11 PM

I do not know. Artifically inflated cost ??

Yes, and the reason WHY it's artificially inflated is because the pharmaceuticals companies can jack up the prices, knowing that the corporate insurance companies will pay it, and the corporate corrupted FDA won't regulate them.

And as long as Joe WalMart can afford his $4 co-pay for the pills, he's not going to care what the real cost of them is.... at least not until he loses his job, and then has to either pay the full price, or worse yet, develop a "Pre-existing condition" before he gets a new health care plan.

ELVIS

07-12-2009, 11:14 PM

Joe Walmart ??

FORD

07-12-2009, 11:27 PM

Joe Walmart ??Generic variation on "Joe Sixpack". I used WalMart because of their recent $4 co pay on prescriptions scam, which is partially subsidized by Big Pharma, and partially WalMart's own spin on the oldest retail trick in the book, the "loss leader" to get people in the door, knowing that they'll spend more money, once they're inside.

FORD

07-13-2009, 01:09 AM

LabCorp Denies Blood Test for Heart Attack Patient Due to $7 Debt
Posted by Donna Smith - S... on June 28, 2009 - 10 : 07am

By Donna Smith

OK, if this wasn’t personal enough just yet for me, it just got a whole lot more so. And if you think for one instant that in this nation at this point in history and with this popularly elected President and Democratic Congress you will be treated for a heart attack simply because you might die if you are not treated, think again. And if you think having insurance helps, think some more.

On Friday, my husband was denied a blood test because a computer record from some distant time past and some other state showed he had a $7 balance with LabCorp. I am not making this up.

My husband had a heart attack this week. He woke up one morning sweating profusely and with a heart rate dropping. I watched his color turn first ruddy then ashen, and then he felt as though he was going to pass out. He would not allow me to call 911 as he slowly began to feel sick to his stomach and he believed his symptoms were digestive rather than cardiac.

We have learned over the years to wait to seek care – it is expensive to do otherwise and dooms us to the endless loop of bills and collection notices and more damage to our already badly bruised credit rating. So we always wait to seek care until there seems to be no other option. We are not alone. Millions of Americans do the same. We do not want to use the emergency rooms or doctors’ offices. We don’t want anything to do with the whole mess.

We moved to Maryland in March, but have fought Humana insurance and Medicare transfer since then to even make sure my husband can get any care at all. And, by God, we were paying the premiums the whole time the insurance folks hemmed and hawed and stalled. It took three months to get that all straightened out, during which time they repeated over and over, “we’re not denying treatment,” and technically I suppose they weren’t as they want us all just to get out our checkbooks and debit cards and pay up. And in the meantime, my husband waited for any doctors’ appointment and got meds by calling back to Chicago to get prescriptions refilled.

My husband is a cardiac patient and a vascular patient with a complicated medical history and needs follow-up care on a regular basis. He is a responsible guy who has always maintained his insurance coverage and who avoids seeking care unless it is needed. He does not seek to overuse or abuse the system. To stay relatively healthy, he needs regular check-ups and decent intervention when necessary.

But, I insisted my husband follow up in the way we all are told is more sensible and cost effective. He went to a primary care doc on Wednesday who shuffled him off to a cardiologist after a visit barely long enough to be billed as an “extended, new patient visit.” An EKG showed the grim reality. “Abnormal, negative T-waves. Inferior infarct.”

Blood work was ordered in advance of the cardiologist visit set for Friday. He was to fast overnight, see the cardiologist and then get his blood drawn. Seems to be progressing, eh?

Well, only until he sat down in the LabCorp office to get his blood drawn. The LabCorp employee typed in my husband’s Social Security Number, and promptly told him he could not have his blood drawn or have his test administered until he cleared up his old bill with LabCorp. The bill? $7. That’s right -- $7.

And my husband has been covered by insurance for many years. But now he sat – post myocardial infarction or heart attack – being told by a laboratory employee that he would be denied care due to an unpaid $7 bill. He did not have $7 with him. He was fasting. He tried to explain. They did not budge. They did call the supervisor. She confirmed and stood her ground for LabCorp. No test for Larry Smith. He owes $7.

David King, the CEO of LabCorp, made $8.2 million in 2008. He’s one of the people and LabCorp is one of the companies President Obama is celebrating who will help transform our nation’s healthcare system. Indeed. And LabCorp’s political participation committee donated funds to several candidates in 2008, including Sen. Max Baucus and Sen. Charles Grassley, both of the Senate Finance Committee that is working on the nation’s healthcare reform.

Lest we think the insurance giants are the only people hurting, harming and killing Americans like my husband as they shore up their profits, follow the money in this story alone. One doctor’s office, another doctor’s office, one insurance company and finally a lab – all worked together to make what they could individually off my husband and then ultimately denied his care for $7. Everybody got their bite of the apple and then left him in the dust as they moved on to the next source of revenue, oops, I mean the next patient.

Where do we stand today? Still no blood work drawn. Waiting for next week to see what we can do to set the tests and exams the cardiologist ordered before she got busy with another patient. Did my husband return to the doctor’s office to tell them what happened and ask for their help? Yes. And he said not one person, not one, would reach into their pockets and give him the $7 or pick up the phone and try to help him resolve this. So what was his life worth? $7.

We’ll get the tests done somehow. But the point is, we’ll have to fight for it. And his heart will be stressed more and so on and so on and so on. This is the travesty of healthcare in this nation. And this Congress and this President are so damned concerned with their own political futures they cannot even see this reality for the rest of us. I am so angry.

And don’t tell me that a single payer – publicly funded and privately delivered system -- wouldn’t stop heart attack patients from being denied care due to old debts of $7. It’s the only system that could stop that sort of abuse.

The LabCorp supervisor who denied Larry Smith’s test on Friday, June 26, in Elkridge, Maryland, is named Shirley Smith (no relation to Larry) at LabCorp’s Maryland office: 410-365-1264. LabCorp’s customer service line for billing can be reached at: 1-800-845-6167... just incase you'd like to weigh in on their policies and procedures.

LabCorp Denies Blood Test for Heart Attack Patient Due to $7 Debt | Guaranteed Healthcare (http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/blog/donna-smith-sicko-patient/2009/06/28/labcorp-denies-blood-test-heart-attack-patient-due-7-debt)

hideyoursheep

07-13-2009, 01:17 AM

The LabCorp supervisor who denied Larry Smith’s test on Friday, June 26, in Elkridge, Maryland, is named Shirley Smith (no relation to Larry) at LabCorp’s Maryland office: 410-365-1264. LabCorp’s customer service line for billing can be reached at: 1-800-845-6167... just incase you'd like to weigh in on their policies and procedures

FORD

07-13-2009, 01:28 AM

Maybe Ultravag can drop by their office and talk to Shirley in person. That's right in his neighborhood, I believe.

ELVIS

07-13-2009, 01:33 AM

Sadly, nationalized healthcare will not likely solve such problems. It may very well increase denial of care...

Big Train

07-13-2009, 01:55 AM

If you don't like your provider and/or LabCorp. you can change your provider. In a single-payer system, you have to change your country. I agree with Elvis, in the absence of an alternative, your gonna end up making a lot more angry phone calls.

hideyoursheep

07-13-2009, 01:59 AM

InHumana is notorious for denying claims..or not paying them.

FORD

07-13-2009, 02:03 AM

In a single payer system, you wouldn't be denied care over a 7 dollar billing discrepancy, so this sort of situation wouldn't happen.

The hospital would treat patients. The lab would test blood. The administrative paperwork would be done by the government health care agency (whatever it would be called)

So this type of bullshit red tape would not exist at all.

Short of JC coming back to earth and healing everybody like he did 2000 years ago, there will never be a "perfect" system. But the singer payer model (as seen in most other "civilized" nations) has certainly proven the most effective as eliminating clusterfucks like the one described above.

Big Train

07-13-2009, 02:07 AM

How can you say that with absolute certainty? There would not be a single medical flight from Canada if any of that were true.

I'm willing to bet the exact opposite happens and it ends up being far more corrupt as people pay for things their loved one needs by using a black market for the things they are denied or delayed on in the magical single care system.

I'd much rather there be as many options on the table as possible. Giving them up gains the patient nothing.

hideyoursheep

07-13-2009, 02:15 AM

How can you say that with absolute certainty? There would not be a single medical flight from Canada if any of that were true. Call it a gut feeling if you want, but I seriously DOUBT any "medical flights from Canada" are coming here to take advantage of our marvelously efficient health insurance.

ELVIS

07-13-2009, 03:43 AM

Of course not, they're paying cash...

ELVIS

07-13-2009, 03:44 AM

How can you say that with absolute certainty?

He can't...

hideyoursheep

07-13-2009, 04:31 AM

Of course not, they're paying cash...

How can you say that with absolute certainty?

Funny how these supposed "cash payers" know to the penny how much their bill will be BEFORE any care is given, yet our insurance providers never know until the bill actually comes in.

:rolleyes:

I think it's a myth.

Show me one example...just ONE...where a cash only transaction occurred and the patient knew in advance how much they were going to pay...and the patient DID NOT have health insurance acceptable by the doctor providing care, AND were from Canada.

ELVIS

07-13-2009, 04:37 AM

LMAO!

As if this is a myth...

:elvis:

hideyoursheep

07-13-2009, 04:40 AM

Just one..

Seshmeister

07-13-2009, 05:53 AM

Short of JC coming back to earth and healing everybody like he did 2000 years ago, there will never be a "perfect" system.

I don't see how standing about for weeks in Palestine could be described as a perfect system. The queues would be horrendous.

Also in the story he didn't heal everyone on the planet he healed 26 specific persons of leper, blindness, deafness, deaf and dumb, paralysis... some of the healings are mentioned in three Gospels, so, the Gospels are full of physical healings (Matt.8,9,12,20, Mr.1,2,3,5,7,8,10, Lk.4,5,6,7,8,13,14,1718,22, Jn.4,5,9).

He delivered 7 persons from the demons of spinal bent for 18 year, epilepsy, blindness, madness ... (Lk.4,8,9,11,13, Matt.12,15,17, Mr.1,5,7,9).

He resurrected three persons (Matt.9, Mr.5, Lc.7,8, Jn.11).

On top of it He healed an delivered many others as reported in Lk 6,4, Mk 6, Matt.4,9,15,19, : "A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all." (Lk.6:17-19)

Cheers!

:gulp:

ELVIS

07-13-2009, 06:33 AM

Jesus continues to heal people today...

Jesus Christ

07-13-2009, 10:06 AM

Jesus continues to heal people today...

And thank Dad I do not hath to deal with the excessive paperwork!

Seshmeister

07-13-2009, 10:35 AM

Jesus continues to heal people today...

If you think that then you have to accept he gives cancer to children too.

Panamark

07-13-2009, 10:58 AM

Hey , Im probably jumpin in a bit late, but we have a free medical
system in Australia. You can opt to join a private insurance,
(nicer rooms, choice of hospital, docs etc) but if you are stone
cold broke, nobody gets turned away. I thought it was the
same in the UK ?

A lot of people who have private insurance will go through the public
system depending on what they have wrong, as we have an excellent
public system...

I smashed myself to death about 6 years ago and it cost me $70
after being fixed up and staying in hospital for nearly 2 weeks....
The $70 was for the ambulance.

Seshmeister

07-13-2009, 11:04 AM

Yeah I think it's similar to the UK except we don't have charges for ambulances.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand and most of Western Europe have public health systems but the Americans can't afford it so they are 37th in the world for healthcare.

It's a shame maybe we could all club together and send them some money...