Carrying the Torch

Avedon Carol of The Sideshow is on fire today:

And why should the millions of Americans who opposed the invasion of Iraq - because it was evil and costly on every level - have been forced to pay for that, too? Why collect any taxes at all, when there are bound to be people who oppose the way they are spent. War on Drugs? Abstinence-only sex "education"? War on (SCoPWUS) Drugs? Abortion is actually far less controversial than the invasion of Iraq, and the percentage of Americans who actively support Abstinence-only is small to begin with, while the dwindling support for the drug war from nearly every quarter should be giving legislators pause. Those programs are genuinely immoral and extraordinarily costly. But no one asks whether those of us who oppose them should have to pay for those. Instead we are asked whether the government should be covering abortions, despite the fact that abortion is legal precisely because a majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade.

With extensive quote by Jamison Foser.

Jill of Brilliant at Breakfast is also on fire today:

The health insurance model is somewhat about spreading risk; someone who is generally healthy isn't going to use as many services as someone who isn't -- and that can be as much about the genetic luck of the draw as about one's own personal choices. We all know about the guy from Supersize Me who eats Big Macs every day and he's skinny and his cholesterol is fine. We also know people who eat right, exercise, and still have high cholesterol. The 96-year-old woman who gets her hair done where I do who takes Celebrex, Actonel, a blood pressure pill, a water pill, and about five other drugs, uses more services than I do. The baby with spina bifida uses more services than she does. And so it goes. But the health insurance model falls apart when it becomes a for-profit business. Because once paying for health care becomes a for-profit model, it becomes not about paying for necessary services, it's about NOT paying for anything. The less there is on the "out" side of the ledger, the more of the "in" side of the ledger can go to profits -- and into the pockets of executives and stockholders.

[ETA: More on coverage denial and dropping.]

And pecunium is on fire:

A friend of mine hurt his arm while he was in England. He went to see a doctor (NHS is covered in the fees one pays to enter the country, so he was covered). The doctor palpated it and said, "I don't think it's broken, but lets do a CT scan, just to be sure." My friend said, "What, isn't that expensive?".

"Well, it's no good if we don't use it, so if it's free, let's take a look.". He had a minor fracture, and it was splinted up and he was on his way.

I had a kidney stone. They sent me for a CT scan to see how large it was, where it was, and how many there were. The place was empty. When she was done, the operator took a personal call for about five minutes (at which point I really wished I'd gotten another dose of fentanyl before I went).

The bill... 1,500 bucks.

For my entire stay in the ER getting treated for the kidney stone, about $9,000. It was four hours.