Just goes to show that an entity that has to pay out benefits has a financial interest in trying not to pay them. It's not just the detested private insurance companies as we can see here.Originally Posted by Chas'88
Philanthropist Provides Care That The Pentagon Won't
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/21/132203...-pentagon-wont
One afternoon this fall, Bobby McKinney hunched over a coffee table with a clear glass surface. A lamp with a bare light bulb illuminated it from below. Pencil in hand, the former Marine traced the pattern for a tattoo across delicate paper, a swirling, intricate design reminiscent of a Celtic cross
McKinney's small apartment in Atlanta faded from his thoughts: The closet filled with shirts and pairs of jeans, hung three inches apart, all facing exactly the same direction, the way the Marines had taught him. The box packed with a dozen brown plastic medicine bottles. The worn couch that he slept on instead of the bed. The eraser board on his refrigerator where he had scrawled "A coward dies a 1,000 deaths. A warrior dies one."
Suddenly, a nurse's aide knocked on the door. Had he checked the oven? McKinney leapt up and ran to the kitchen, pulling out a tin of brownies on the point of burning.
"I guess I was just very focused on the tattoo design," he told a counselor later, pushing a camouflage baseball cap back on his head. "I set the alarm. I guess I just didn't hear it."
"Try to work on one thing at a time," she told him. "Multitasking is just asking the brain to do two or three things not too well."
McKinney, 29, nodded in agreement. It seemed so obvious once she said it. But his mind — the mind that once helped sniper teams in Iraq, that navigated battlefield maps and complex rules of enemy engagement — had just not come up with the idea to do one task instead of many. "When you think about it, it kinda makes sense. But I wouldn't think about it on my own," he said.
McKinney is an Iraq war veteran who suffered multiple concussions, also known as mild traumatic brain injuries. Bomb blasts jarred his brain, leaving him with no outside scars, but with nagging mental problems. His short-term memory is bad. He moves slowly through ordinary chores. He gets disoriented easily, and can't find his way to the home that he has lived in for months without the aid of a GPS.
A farm boy fond of the Georgia Bulldogs and chewing tobacco, McKinney has pinned his hopes for recovery on cognitive rehabilitation therapy, a subtle and complex treatment for a subtle and complex injury. Doctors and studies have shown that the therapy helps soldiers. But the Pentagon's primary health plan for soldiers and seriously wounded veterans, called Tricare, will not cover the treatment, saying it is still unproven.
Cognitive Rehabilitation in Action
To see what cognitive therapy looked like, ProPublica and NPR spent several days with McKinney and fellow soldiers and veterans at Project Share, a charity to help brain-damaged soldiers. The program is based out of the Shepherd Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Injury in Atlanta, a nationally recognized hospital for head injuries.
Former Home Depot magnate and philanthropist Bernie Marcus founded Project Share in January 2008 to fill the gaps left by Tricare and military and veterans hospitals, which often lack the expertise and staffing to provide a full-scale program of cognitive rehabilitation therapy.
Cognitive rehabilitation is "very time consuming. It's not an easy deal," said Marcus. "Isn't this worthwhile? Isn't this something we should all be concerned about? Whatever it takes is what we should give them."
The visit revealed no flashy techniques, no cutting-edge medical devices. Instead, the men spent their entire days with therapists who focused on improving their memory, speech, balance and psychological health.
Soldiers got individualized treatment plans from a team of therapists who administered an intensive, two-week long evaluation to pin down their cognitive needs.
Therapists from different fields closely coordinated. A behavioral therapist provided counseling, since nearly all of the soldiers have post-traumatic stress disorder, a psychological injury which frequently accompanies traumatic brain injuries.
A speech therapist taught basic organizational techniques to overcome memory problems: How to make lists, how to pay bills, how to organize paperwork. A physical therapist helped them manage pain and relearn balance, which is often thrown off after a blast injury.
In the evenings, the men lived in apartments provided by the center. They did daily field trips, doing errands that are commonplace for most, but difficult for those with cognitive problems. They shopped at a grocery store. They cooked dinner. They helped assemble wheelchairs for the needy. They went to a horse park, where they combed, fed and rode horses.
At each step, a therapist helped them prepare for the job at hand. They suggested making to do lists; using an iPod to keep track of medications; storing medical and military records into clearly labeled file folders.
Soldiers get a blue rubber bracelet with the initials SWAPS. The letters are supposed to remind them of a course of action should they become frustrated or mentally overloaded. The letters are an acronym: Stop; What's the problem?; Alternatives and options; Pick a plan; Satisfied?
The men stay for two and three months at a time. Afterwards, a Project Share worker follows them for up to a year to make sure that they are using the techniques they have learned to cope with life in the real world.
"It's very cozy and cocoon-like and warm and fuzzy here," said Tina Raziano, who visits soldiers and veterans at their homes and military bases to make sure they are adjusting. "When they leave here, they go through major, major changes. You really have to adjust to a new normal."
Cognitive therapy is not a silver bullet, nor is it a one-time treatment, or a rigid, well defined program. Instead, therapists here say, it employs a variety of techniques designed to do the hard work of retraining each soldier's brain to compensate for the things it can no longer do.
"We all see that they start out unable to do basic tasks," said Bonnie Schaude, a speech pathologist who coordinates many of the treatments. "People are leaving here, and they can function independently."
The Intricacies Of Care
The visit made just as clear, however, the difficulty of implementing such an intensive, long-term plan for the military or Department of Veterans Affairs. Official Pentagon figures show that 188,000 soldiers have suffered some kind of brain injury since 2000. The number includes blast wounds, but also head trauma sustained in vehicle crashes, training accidents and household falls. Previous NPR and ProPublica stories have shown that the number likely falls short of the full tally by tens of thousands of soldiers.
The vast majority of head injuries are concussions, from which most soldiers recover quickly. The only treatment needed is bed rest and perhaps pain medication for headaches. But providing the kind of care available at Project Share to even the small percentage of brain-damaged soldiers who need it would require a tremendous commitment of time and money from military and veteran medical systems.
Project Share provides more than 30 hours of rehabilitation a week for several months at a time, and a year of follow up. In contrast, most VA and military systems can provide only a few hours of therapy a week. All Project Share's services are in one building, across the street from the Shepherd Center and its scores of cognitive experts. Military and VA facilities can spend months recruiting a single neurologist at a base for 30,000 soldiers.
The Pentagon's medical budget is $50 billion a year, expected to skyrocket to $65 billion by 2015. The system already cannot fill the slots available for psychologists, counselors and neuropsychologists, who can make better money in the private sector. The VA also has to care for an enormous population of aging veterans, whose geriatric needs are far different than the needs of injured Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Project Share even has the resources to fly in family members and spouses on private planes, the costs and time donated by volunteers. A pilot flew Tiffany Dantzler, 22, from South Carolina to Georgia one recent day to visit her boyfriend, Ashley Craft, so the two could receive joint counseling on what to expect from brain damage recovery.
Struggling To Be 'Half As Good'
Craft, 26, sustained burns and a brain injury in a 2006 roadside bomb explosion in Iraq. After the explosion, he could not remember his own name. A specialist in the Marine Corps, he was medically retired in August 2007. He suffered from post-traumatic stress. He got angry quickly. A mechanic who worked on military vehicles, he could no longer tune up a car back home.
Craft got treatment at VA hospitals in Richmond and Columbia, S.C., near his home. But each time he left the programs, he felt lost and abandoned, he said.
His captain in the Marine Corps heard about Project Share, and got him admitted. Craft now hopes that the intensive rehabilitation will help him return to a normal life. At a recent session on anger management, he tried to take notes on a handheld memory device, painfully typing in one pointer after another.
"You're not the way you used to be. And it's really tough to grasp that concept," he said. "I used to think I was pretty good, and now I have to use a lot of adaptive equipment to remind myself, or to even be half as good as I used to be. That's what I got to do. That's my life now."
Shy and hesitant when he talks, a man who has seen his expectations dashed more than once, Craft said he is more hopeful, now. Project Share provides him far more intensive care than he was able to receive in the military, he said. His girlfriend has already noticed a difference.
"He seems more confident about what he says. His memory seems a little bit better," Dantzler said. "He seems more alive."
Marcus, the philanthropist who supports the program, said the expense and effort are worth it. In July 2008, he visited officials at the Army Surgeon General's office to pitch cooperation between Project Share and the military. He got a tepid response, according to Marcus and several others present at the meeting. The military said it wanted to focus more on improving its own treatment centers.
Marcus left frustrated. He had visions of an alliance between the military and a nationwide network of civilian treatment programs. Instead, Project Share has treated about 70 soldiers since it began two and half years ago. Since there's no formal relationship with the military, soldiers generally get referred by word of mouth. The military sent one therapist to receive training.
"That's where the problem is, trying to keep it internal when in fact you don't have the resources,: Marcus said. "If you can't do it yourself, outsource what you can't do. That's the name of the game." Military and VA officials "all say things that you want them to say, but the bottom line is, it's not happening."
As he talked, Marcus grew agitated.
"I don't feel that Washington has paid attention to this thing. I don't think that Washington has done enough on this. I blame the president, I blame the Congress, for not giving these kids the opportunity to go on with a fruitful life after they have devoted their service to this country and put their lives on the line," Marcus said.
"It just doesn't make sense to me. It frustrates me. And it angers me. Kids are wandering around the streets today that will become tomorrow's criminals that were yesterday's heroes. How pathetic is that?
"We owe these kids a hell of a lot more."
Cpl. Brendan Jannesen, 23, a special forces soldier in the 75th Ranger Regiment, was patrolling at night in Afghanistan in August 2010 carrying heavy gear when he slipped off a trail, falling down a steep slope.
Tall, thin and fit, Jannesen had been a forward observer, trained to coordinate airplane and artillery strikes with soldiers on the ground attacking Taliban fighters. A math whiz, he could simultaneously juggle people screaming in both ears as he figured out the angle for incoming mortar strikes in the middle of battle.
When he awoke from his fall, however, Jannesen struggled to do simple arithmetic. He had to use his fingers to add. Jannesen's sergeant sent him to Project Share, hoping that its intensive approach would help.
Sitting in a common room with a poker table, Jannesen became passionate as he described how much he wants to return to duty, how much he has improved so far.
"I could do degrees, azimuth, you have to calculate the time of flight, the number of rounds, how fast your target is moving to try to get a direct hit on target. It was very, very heavy on cognitive demands," he said. "Now, I get worn out trying to write out a to-do list. It's very, very frustrating and very difficult to handle. You want to do stuff, but you can't do it."
Basic ReTraining
About half the patients at Project Share are veterans, medically retired from the service and hoping to return to civilian life. The others are active duty soldiers who aim to return to their units. They are mostly Marines and special operations soldiers whose superiors have heard about the program through the close-knit communities that characterize those two forces.
Therapists say that nearly all of their patients are motivated: To get better, to navigate their lives, to recover from a baffling condition that has fundamentally changed the way they think and act in ways all but invisible to the outside world.
Mild traumatic brain injury "can be a blessing and a curse," said Irene Spychalla, case manager for Project Share. "These guys look completely healthy. They're walking, they're talking. You don't realize they're struggling with their daily lives."
A Marine since 1998, Sgt. Orville Wempner, Jr. was sitting on a tarmac in Iraq in 2004 when a mortar landed nearby. He remained conscious but was left with pounding headaches for weeks afterwards.
A water purification specialist, Wempner grew perplexed after he started having trouble operating the enormous, 5-ton pumping machine whose internal workings he had mastered long before the blast. He began to carry around a small green notebook to write down all his tasks. One day, he was alone taking care of his 6-year-old daughter and he simply forgot to feed her dinner.
Wempner, a Minnesotan known to his friends as Junior, knew that something was wrong. His brain, he said, was like a car engine with miswired spark plugs.
Wempner said his brain "feels like it's misfiring. There are days that I'm sitting there and everything is clear and then there's more days when I'm confused, not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing, where I need to go."
Wempner entered the Project Share program in September. Therapists worked hard on helping him learn to organize and prioritize. They retaught him to make lists. They trained him how to keep a calendar with all his appointments written down.
Basic stuff. But for Wempner, they were the tools to getting his brain working right again.
"It does sound pretty simple and down to earth," he said. "But when you're not thinking clear … simple things like that don't really work."
Read *all* of that article, James 50. Then tell us it's not relevant.
Semo and Glick are cowards. I told them, in advance, about the pricetag for this war. They jeered. Now, the butchers bill is coming due.
Come on out, boys, and surrender. You're beat.
Few seniors prepared for long-term illness
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40767145/ns/health-aging/
People don't like to think about what will happen if they become too ill or infirm to manage on their own. Experts say that partly explains why sales of long-term-care insurance policies are so anemic; only about 10 percent of seniors have such coverage.
Given the complexity of these policies, experts agree it's tough to decide whether they're right for you. The policies have many moving parts: After a waiting period, they generally pay a set daily benefit for a certain number of years. They typically cover care in a nursing home, an assisted living facility or at home.
They also tend to have high premiums. A 60-year-old might pay $200 a month for a policy that pays $150 a day for a maximum of three years, according to a 2009 study by Avalere Health, a research and consulting firm, and the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Kaiser Health News, which produces this column, is a program of the foundation.) Purchasing at a younger age can help trim premium costs. But since people typically don't make a claim until they're 80 years old or so, that can be a long lead time, especially when you've got college tuitions to pay or may be worried about losing your job.
Story: Most adults don't get the vaccines they need Recent turmoil in the long-term-care insurance market adds further uncertainty. MetLife, one of the largest carriers, announced it will no longer sell the policies starting next year, and John Hancock, another major issuer, has asked regulators for premium increases averaging 40 percent for 850,000 policyholders.
In the future, people may be able to take advantage of the Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act, or CLASS Act. This is a program created under the new health-care law to help people with functional or cognitive impairments pay for nonmedical services to help them stay in their homes. The money can also be used to cover nursing home care.
Video: Should You Buy A Long Term Care Insurance Policy?
Premiums and benefits have yet to be set, but one estimate, by the Congressional Budget Office, suggested a cash benefit averaging $75 a day. Enrollment won't begin until 2012 at the earliest, however, and people will have to pay premiums for at least five years before they're eligible to receive benefits.
What to do in the meantime?
Unfortunately, existing government programs aren't much help to middle-income people. Medicare provides only limited nursing home and home health care coverage. Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people, pays for about 70 percent of nursing home patients. But in order to qualify, people must generally have no more than a few thousand dollars in assets.
Story: Oft-prescribed pain medication may be risky for elderly "People need to think about it very holistically," says Anne Tumlinson, senior vice president for long-term care at Avalere Health. For many people, that's going to mean patching together a safety net that consists of savings, caregiver help from friends and family, support from local community services and perhaps long-term-care insurance.
Care isn't cheap. In 2009, the average cost for a home health aide was $21 an hour, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. A private room in a nursing home cost $219 daily on average, though there are wide variations depending on location. A one-bedroom unit in an assisted living facility was $3,131 per month, on average.
Two years ago, when her mother was in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease, LuMarie Polivka-West's parents sold their home and moved to an assisted living facility in Tallahassee. After her mother's death last year, Polivka-West and her two brothers moved their father, now 96, to another assisted living facility a bit closer to LuMarie's home.
Story: Vitamin D megadoses may not reduce frailty risk in women LuMarie and her two brothers help supplement their dad's $1,600 monthly Social Security check and the money left from the sale of his home to cover his living expenses, including the $3,400 monthly charge at the assisted living facility. As a nurse practitioner, her younger brother is able to manage their father's medications, saving him the $600 a month that the assisted living facility would charge for this service.
The family discussed buying long-term-care insurance at one time but decided against it, partly because of the cost.
"My parents planned well, but they lived longer than expected," says LuMarie. Her father's assets will run out in two to three years. "We'll help maintain Dad in the assisted living facility as long as possible," she says.
About 10 years ago, Charline Hines and her husband also discussed buying a long-term-care policy. But they made the opposite decision: They bought one. Hines says the policy was useful when her husband was dying of Parkinson's disease a few years ago and had to go into a nursing home near their home in Grand Prairie, Tex.
But Hines, 78, just received a notice that her premium was going up in January, from $2,772 a year to $3,132. Now she's seriously considering dropping the policy.
"I feel it's time to just let it go," she says.
For people who are considering buying a policy, call a few local facilities to get an idea of costs in the area. Since the average stay in a nursing home is about 2.5 years, many experts advise buying a policy that will provide benefits for about that long. Inflation protection is also key, to keep pace with rising costs. A policy with 5 percent compound inflation protection is the gold standard.
Story: Shellfish may help preserve seniors' eyesight Look for a company with strong financial ratings and a history of stable rates. New York Life and Northwestern Mutual, for example, have never raised premiums on existing policies. Those companies are the exception, however. If you buy a long-term-care policy, expect that premiums will go up.
"I'm telling people now that they need to build a 50 percent rate increase into their planning," says Bonnie Burns, a specialist with California Health Advocates, an advocacy organization.
What article? What did I say? You have gone wild with posting articles today. I simply don't have the time to read them all. Tell me what I said and where you disagree.Read *all* of that article, James 50. Then tell us it's not relevant.
Semo and Glick are cowards. I told them, in advance, about the pricetag for this war. They jeered. Now, the butchers bill is coming due.
Come on out, boys, and surrender. You're beat.
James50
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. - G.K. Chesterton
OK. You don't have time to read them all. I can see that. I'm time challenged, too, usually. Today just yielded more items of interest.
But the WHOLE content of the article was needed for comprehension. And part of it was set in Atlanta (a fitting irony).
Don't tell us that we didn't tell you the whole story. Note: Many of us have owned and run our own businesses. See Tim Turner's excellent post about how little tax policy influenced his business decisions.
In other words, do not patronize us about business, economics, and markets.
And, especially, do not lecture us as your employees, when we post something you don't want to hear.
Wally.
Ok, now when you mention Atlanta, I assume you are talking about the Project Share article above.
Now, what have I said that this is a rebuttal to? To me the article is about the failures of TriCare. What have I said that was patronizing about wounded veterans or my employees that is applicable to this situation?
I understand you are frustrated with me. I just don't see what for.
James50
Last edited by James50; 12-22-2010 at 06:28 PM.
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. - G.K. Chesterton
Plea to conservatives: What should we do with them?
Let' do a little mind experiment ... let's select an obvious group from our population that does not carry a health insurance policy - single, 20-30 somethings, either working for a small firm that doesn't offer group health insurance as a benefit, or working for one that does, but chooses not to take the benefit because they don't want to have to pay their share of the policy's cost.
My guess is that there are many of these folks. They are probably all smart, good-looking, full of energy, talented and clearly represent the best that our country has to offer.
And they all say, "HELL NO, YOU CAN'T MAKE ME BUY SOMETHING I DON'T WANT!! IT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!"
Ok. So let's say we let these young people go their own way, just like they say.
Now, give it six months or a year.
Let us revisit our cohort:
* Some hundreds will have been diagnosed with brain cancers.
* There will be many thousands of cases of bone cancer, largely found in the femur.
* Many thousands will have suffered grievous injuries from motorcycle accidents, auto accidents, from diving into the shallow end of pools while drunk, etc.
* Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, will have contracted Chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, and herpes.
* Fill in the blank ____________. (You get the idea)
Revisiting the principled conservative's position on such things ...
Principle #1. One is responsible for one's own sustenance.
Principle #2. No one else should be expected to pick up and have to solve someone else's problems.
Principle #3. Government should not have to clean up a mess that is the obvious fault of the person in the mess.
Given these positions, I can only assume that the principled conservative's recommendation for these millions of young people is that we should check their documents and if they have no health insurance, and if they have no money to pay for health care, then they should be simply left by the side of the road by the ambulance crew, or turned away by the oncologist's receptionist, and not given antibiotics by "the county."
Why is it that all we hear is the whining and puling of the right wing about how
"the government shouldn't be able to force us to buy something we don't want!"
Why don't we hear about their implied solution to save gazillions of healthcare dollars every year ... just turn away those who cannot pay and who do not have insurance?
So ... Tell me, conservatives, how do you propose to handle these folks? What is your solution? Please don't tell me that you want our society to continue paying through the nose by providing free taxpayer-paid care at our public institutions! I want to know the details of your principled turning away of sick and injured folks ... or do you have another solution?
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
Simple. "Let them die, and reduce the surplus population."
A virtual $0.02 to whoever can identify the source of that quote.
Scrooge in the Christmas Carol by Dickens.
James50
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. - G.K. Chesterton
I say our best bet is to grind them up for food. Just a proposal of sorts, if you will...
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
What's your guess about how many of them end up in county hospitals?
Is that from "A Modest Proposal"?
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
I'm sure that where they wind up varies a lot from community to community, depending on the local medical structure. Speaking mostly from my own experience:
Here in the Rocky Mountain west, there tends to be only one hospital in many of the communities. The metro areas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Phoenix (this is probably an exception), Las Vegas, all have sophisticated systems. Some have at least one if not more than one integrated healthcare system complete with multiple hospitals, their own owned medical groups and for profit side companies, like insurance companies, clinical labs, laundry companies, courier systems, etc.
Back to your question - the uninsured person with a serious medical problem is likely not to be treated at the for-profit hospital such as Ardent's Lovelace system here in ABQ. They'll be stabilized in the ED of course according to law, but then transferred to UNMH which is our "public" hospital.
The Presbyterian Integrated system (a not-for-profit community-owned sytem) will treat some of these folks, but they limit their "free" care, and will transfer most to UNMH.
In order to induce some organization into it, UNMH offers something called "UNM Care" which is medical care with low co-pays for those who can't afford "regular" insurance, but also can't qualify for Medicaid.
As it turns out, we in New Mexico who own property, have a specific mill levy that goes to UNMH and amounts to about $400 per capita. Then of course UNMH also collects regular revenue from a lot of folks that go their out of choice, or out of contracts from their insurance companies, such as Humana who uses them exclusively.
In Denver, you'll find a similar situation where the various hospital systems do some charity care, but most of it goes to what used to be called Denver General, the city hospital.
In Salt Lake, Intermountain Health Care, the mormon's system is dominant. Given the church's cultural tendency to really step up for folks in need, I'd guess that one could receive really good care there if one was down and out, but I have no personal experience there.
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
Yep, the for profit hospital is no better than the greedy insurance industry. They make sure they transfer their patients to the non-profits. The load is getting very heavy for hospitals with a heart.
The hospital where my husband works is a non-profit and it gives tons of free care. They recently had a 'consultant' come in to get the hospital more profitable. I wasn't surprised to hear that a private consultant whose job it is to whip hospitals into shape, recommended they scrap the Christain principle of caring for the poor.
It appears that the latest ideas for keeping hospitals afloat, are for the federal funded agencies to take over some of the not so profitable hospital units. Don't they realize that the Feds are going to be pulling on the reins of forking out more money for health care?
It won't just be our soldiers with brain injuries begging for treatment if this health care crisis isn't straightened out in the very near future.
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a
Why is for profit health care considered a good thing anyway?
I mean yeah, I guess that you could run an army or a local police force on a pay per use basis, but is such really a smart option?
Some basics are just run better as public services.
Of course the banksters won't have a rent seeking opportun...
...oh, never mind, I have my answer.
I don't have a number, if that's what you mean.
But unless the young person who doesn't insure him/herself, because he/she has a low chance of needing health insurance, has other economic means, he/she will end up in the public healthcare system.
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
Of course, there is the very common medical condition that tends to strike young women -- pregnancy.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
Ah, yes ... there IS that ... that also is sexually transmitted, I guess. Another of the risks of being young.
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
Do what? Pregnancy and STDs are risks of having unprotected sex, not being young.
I was thinking the same thing, haha! Old(er) perople can get herpes and pregnant too!
Ok ... you are partly correct ... there does seem to be a rise in the incidence of elders getting STDs since the sexual enhancement drugs have made possible what used to be a fading probability for many.
Pregnancy too, can be extended into elderhood somewhat.
However, based on the age reported on the typical pregnancy test request, or STD test request, the distribution is highly skewed toward the younger population.
Btw, I was making a lame joke, not trying to make a scientific statement about the incidence/age relationships of pregnancy and STDs.
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
The risk of a Boomer like me of getting pregnant with unprotected sex would be something like zero, and the risk for you, Rani, would also be pretty low, whereas the risk of one of the younger posters, such as Rose 1992, would be pretty high. Pregnancy risk (or opportunity) is definitely age-related.
If anyone over 45 has a baby, I immediately suspect donor eggs. Biological spontaneous pregancy over 45 is very rare. And of course, donor egg pregnancy would not be the result of unprotected sex.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
Unless you get raped, pregnancy is not a "risk." It's a direct consequence of your actions, and having "insurance" against it is a ridiculous concept.
