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tooth
Trad climber
The Best Place On Earth
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And you can also insist that the dentists buy their materials and have their lab work done in china with 1/10 the cost materials polluted with nickel and lead, etc. That would cut the price down for these government dentists.
Also, making sure no 7th generation bonding agents are used in the fillings, just 2nd or 3rd. (that stuff costs me $500/2.5ml bottle)
Also, insist that they don't attend CE courses at $4k/wk and only use the knowledge from dental school or the free sales magazines.
Also, make sure they don't stay up-to-date with the expensive endo equipment that came out 20 years ago and hand-file canals using touch to guess at the apex location. (That would save on x-rays, time and root-zx machines)
Make sure they don't have to re-do any work at their own cost.
Make sure the dentist has no cost of education or debt to pay off when they graduate so that they can live on a medicaid salary.
FIND Dentists who are motivated to do patchwork dentistry for a living.
Man, there are a million ways you can do dentistry on the cheap, not one of them would justify setting up a government-run program though.
The simple solution to this is, go to Mexico if you feel that is what is better.
The average dentist's overhead in the US last year was over 75%. The average cost per hour is ~$500 to run the office. So discounting something 25% leaves no profit (Read: he is doing it for free) and doing a crown at no cost to the patient costs about 1.5 hours times $500.
Unless it is a good idea to pay our US office staff like Mexican office staff, pay mexican rent and all the rest, how do you think a business with overhead in the US and advanced skills can match Mexican prices? They are two entirely different things and not many dentists would choose to do that.
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apogee
climber
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"...and free, yes free inferior care for the "less affluent"."
Do you have to call it 'inferior'? How about 'baseline', or 'minimal', or something like that?
And it shouldn't be free, either- there should be some kind of payment that very low income people make to the system, even if it isn't at all commensurate with what they are getting. No nanny-states!
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apogee
climber
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You're right, defining what would be included in such a level of treatment would be the rub. 'Inferior' just sounds so...inferior. Not very politically palatable.
You know, fattrad, you are basically advocating a Canadian-style system with talk like that....
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Karen,
CAN WE TALK?
Oxycodone IS "percocet". Percocet is the just the orginal trade name.
Oxycodone is a mix of tylenol and synthetic narcotic.
You have a back problem, so do I.
Do you have a "TENS" unit? this is an electrical stimulator that blocks
the pain to your brain. I wear mine a couple of hours each day.
You can get a really good one for $129, want more info, let me know.
This, in addition to 4 full 10mg oxycodone,or as you prefer Percocet a day.
Karen, tell me about your back, how old are you, is the pain from an
injury or degenerative disc desease?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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And when you load up on oxycodone, you need something to move things along!
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apogee
climber
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Some great quotes from the teabagging cognoscenti on the recent healthcare reform debate:
President Obama at a town hall meeting last week described a letter he received from a Medicare recipient:
"I got a letter the other day from a woman. She said, 'I don't want government-run health care. I don't want socialized medicine. And don't touch my Medicare.'"
At a town hall meeting held by Rep. Robert Inglis (R-SC):
Someone reportedly told Inglis, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare."
"I had to politely explain that, 'Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,'" Inglis told the Post. "But he wasn't having any of it."
It's no wonder with "very serious" analysts like Arthur Laffer are appearing on CNN and saying things like this (and getting away with it unchallenged):
"If you like the post office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they're run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/get-your-goddamn-governme_b_252326.html
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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If one listens quietly, it sounds like Lois is pulling an 'Ariana Huffington'. Man I hope so! I knew she had it in her!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Yeah, pretty soon we're going to have Lois on OUR side!!
It's scary though, cause when she's making our case about health care, she sounds so reasonable and rational.
;-)
Love ya LEBBY
Baba
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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PS the Rush thing is too funny!
He has severe pain, they find nothing wrong, and now he can pronounce though experience that we have the best health care.
I wonder what his insurance will be billed for finding all that nothing?
No heart, no heart attack. nothing to worry!
peace
Karl
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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"And the Grinch's heart shrunk, four sizes, that day..."
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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She's caving in to common sense, I can tell!.....
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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For me, on my break between universities, getting insurance meant first getting estimates via the internet on health care providers and proposed costs.
Next it meant filling a a loooooong form asking everything about any sort of health related issue experienced in the past 10 years. Pretty difficult in terms of remembering everything and remembering dates, etc. correctly.
Next I submitted the form to see if they would accept me.
Next I had to submit additional information to them about who had insured me in the past when I was with a university. (Turned out it was the exact same company).
After some time, I got a letter of acceptance (whew!) and was informed how much it was really going to cost monthly.
From there, I had several hundred dollars deducted automatically from my checking account to pay for this 'crash and burn' policy. Unless I have a major incident, everything (including bunion surgery I'm recovering from) is out of pocket.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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How does private medical insurance work in the US if you are self employed, and the sole employee of your company.
As a micro-business "owner" I can tell you that you are on your own. You buy your own insurance at no discount or go without.
If you have any health issues or pre-existing conditions, grab your ankles. I know people who pay well over $1000 a month for insurance.
Peace
Karl
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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well, one really good thing about being self employed, and not being
large enough to offer health insurance to any employees, you Do get
to write off ALL your monthly payments on the first page of the 1040,
this is versus putting your premium total on your Schedule A, Itemizations,
and then being only able to write off the amount of your total medical
expenses that exceed 7.5% of you adjusted gross income.
SO, this is a "good thing", as Martha Stewart would say.............
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Not only health insurance being done this year by the Democrats, but also
the Democrats passing, and Obama signing, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
This is especially important if one is a WOMAN.
As you all recall, Lilly Ledbetter worked for Goodyear for decades,
side by side doing the same job as men, and they paid her LESS than the men.
She was never aware of this while working there, and only when a couple
of her fellow male workers sent her their paystubs and showed her how
her employer had knowingly screwed her for years, did she then file suit.
The case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, where the court ruled
5-4 AGAINST her claim, with the five RIGHT WING justices voting against her
and all women.
Bush had NO interest in signing legislation that corrected this, and
so when the Democrats took control of the Senate and Presidency last year,
the VERY FIRST legislation they passed was to stand up for women's rights
to EQUAL PAY, regardless of the length of time elapsed after found out.
SO, add Democrats standing up for ALL WOMEN, in addition to healthcare.
Oh yeah, the Democrats just two weeks ago passed the ANTI RAPE amendment.
This gave WOMEN the right to the US Court system when they are RAPED
by a fellow defense contractor employee.
ALL thirty eight REPUBLICANS VOTED AGAINST giving women the right to courts when they ARE RAPED when employed by defense contractors.
The list goes on and on.
Don't think for one minute the healthcare bill is the ONLY thing
Democrats have been RIGHT about, now that they have some congressional power.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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When you turn 65, ALL Americans can get on MEDICARE.
This healthcare is kick ass good, in survey after survey, people on
Medicare rate their it MUCH HIGHER in satisfaction than those with
private health insurance.
Who to thank for Medicare?
DEMOCRATS.
Medicare was passed in 1965 by DEMOCRATS and signed by President Johnson.
Medicare was bitterly OPPOSED as "socialism" and "government takeover"
by the REPUBLICANS.
The largest DEFICITS in US history have been run up under REPUBLICANS.
The fastest REDUCTIONS in deficits have been been DEMOCRATS.
There is NOT ONE positive good thing about Republicans.
They have passed NO major legislation that benefited average Americans in the past 70 years. And I honestly can't remember anything prior to that.
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apogee
climber
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"How does private medical insurance work in the US if you are self employed, and the sole employee of your company."
Having been self-employed most of my adult life, here's how it worked for me: I had no insurance at all until my late 20's, then had a Blue Cross policy for about 10 years until a job I had for a short time provided my insurance. That lasted about two years, then I was back on a Blue Cross policy for several years until my wife got a job that allowed her to add me to her policy.
Each year I had my private policy, the premium increased (which is typical, even with the very high deductible I maintained), and even with the group policy we are part of now, the cost is quite a bit for someone whose yearly income could nearly qualify me for federal assistance. (For the record- I've never taken such assistance in my life, Repugs!)
It would make so much more sense to have a national system with baseline care that was funded by a payroll tax- this would a) create basic care for anyone who needs it, and b) give private insurance companies some real competition to provide a supplemental policy at a more reasonable rate. The paradigm of employer-provided insurance started in the US arbitrarily by Henry Ford as a means to provide healthcare for the employees of his burgeoning auto industry, and the system just kind of grew off of that model. Though everyone in the US takes it for granted that it works that way, no other country in the world does the same thing. Just another example of the US-centric view us Uh-merri-kins tend to have of everthing.
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apogee
climber
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Here's one simple graph:
There are many, many others- Karl & Norton are sure to post some very clear illustrations of the economic trends of Dem vs. Repug POTUS's in the last 50 years or so.
They all demonstrate quite clearly that yes, the US has generally enjoyed surplusses and economic growth under Dems, and recession & deficits under Repugs. This, in spite of the fact that Repugs have held the WH 7 times out of 12 since Kennedy.
fattrad (and other Repugs) will be quick to point out that these boom/bust cycles were somewhat circumstantial, and the boom of one era can be traced to the foundations that a previous POTUS put in place, and that periods of economic growth often little to do with any direct policy of any POTUS.
Of course, the opposite is argued as well: recession and deficits became necessary evils due to a previous POTUS.
Personally, I think those arguments are just smoke to obscure the simple fact that the US economy has grown under Dems, and has contracted (with record deficits) under Repugs during most of our lifetimes. We'll just have to wait and see how that plays out for Obama.
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apogee
climber
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A couple more for you, Locker, posted earlier by Karl:
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apogee
climber
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OSHA is the 'Occupational Health and Safety Administration'. They are a governmental agency responsible for setting standards for many, many workplaces and enforcing them, usually via site visits and potentially hefty fines. They are a good example of a governmental agency that elicits very strong, oftentimes very negative reaction from people, especially business owners and employers: there are a myriad of standards employers are required to be aware of and operate under. Likewise, employees are expected to have training in the various personal safety skills and practices, and can also be implicated in citations and fines.
On the flip side, OSHA is one of the reasons why the US workplace has improved from the days of the industrial revolution and heinously dangerous work environments. One can easily find many OSHA-nightmares, but it is impossible to say how many people have not been injured, maimed, or killed as a result of those standards.
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