I am heartened to read that hospitals, insurers, and citizens are rallying to ensure that folks injured in the Boston Marathon bombings won't have to bear the financial burden of their computerized prosthetics and other health care:
"We will work to ensure that financial issues/hardship will not pose a barrier to the care that affected members' need," said Sharon Torgerson, spokeswoman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, one of the state's largest health insurers.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, another big insurer, is changing its policy and will pay for some of the more expensive bionic limbs when there is a demonstrated need, said Dr. Michael Sherman, chief medical officer. He said that 15 blast survivors admitted to hospitals are Harvard Pilgrim customers and that the insurance company is discussing "whether we might absorb some of the copays and deductibles."
"This is a terrorist act, and our only thought here is about providing support," he said.
...At Massachusetts General Hospital, where 31 victims have gotten treatment, chief financial officer Sally Mason Boemer said bills "create a lot of stress. Our assumption is there will be sources we can tap through fundraising." Boemer added: "Now is not the time to add additional stress to patients."
...The fund has gotten more than $20 million in donations. Determining who gets what is still being worked out, but victims' insurance status and place of residence won't be a factor, said Kenneth Feinberg, the fund administrator. He oversaw the 9/11 compensation fund during its first three years, distributing more than $7 billion to 5,300 families and victims.
Grass-roots fundraising efforts include online funds set up by friends and relatives of the victims [Lindsey Tanner, "Boston Victims Face Huge Bills; Donations Pour In" AP via Yahoo, 2013.04.26].
So if criminals cause you bodily harm, hospitals and insurers and all of us as a community believe you should not be saddled with the bill for the medical services necessary to make you whole again, right? Cool. How about if a car accident hurts you? Or cancer? Or a falling tree? Or the physical or mental strain of your job? Or all that beer you drink?
There's the fundamental question in health care policy: what responsibility do you bear for your injury and illness? How much should you have to pay to make and keep yourself, your loved ones, and your neighbors well?
Related, update 09:48 MDT: Chad Haber makes me wonder if we might cut costs by beefing up WebMD and getting rid of 80% of our doctors.
Cory, Based on our legal system, the terrorists caused the damaged, and thus be held accountable. They should make everyone whole. I wish you luck as you try to collect on that.
There are some things that just accidents. like a falling tree. (maybe I should sue the forest) or falling off the roof (sue the earth for gravity). Generally speaking I have to pony up the money to make myself whole again.
What happened in Boston was no accident! It was a deliberate attack.
No problem, MC: confiscate all of the Tsarnaevs' possessions, sell them off to buy one robot leg. Then convict the surviving Tsarnaev, put him to work for life in prison, use the money he saves the state breaking rocks or digging ditches or whatever to fund victim health care.
But yes, that will still leave us short. So we need some social insurance to keep the victims from going broke because of the ill visited on them by crime.
That tree and gravity and malicious or indifferent nature can't pay, either. Why let people go broke because of those ills? Why not offer social insurance for everyone in that situation?
Social Insurance for terrorist attacks or acts of crime, tack on accidents? This is a slippery road your on here
The slippery road leads all the way to socialized medicine, a concept that, properly implemented, would represent a vast improvement over the chaos and injustice we have in the system now.
I think they do it pretty well in Denmark. But then, over there, people trust their government as a matter of course. Here in the USA, people distrust their government as a matter of course.
Go figure.
To Stan's point, MC: what's so slippery about that position? Bombing victims, accident victims, and cancer victims incur huge medical bills through no fault of their own. If anyone is opening the slippery s;lope, you are by positing that victims of crime should get free health care. Why do cancer patients deserve that burden when bombing victims do not?
I am not sure why the government does or does not provide medical care in catastrophes..man made or not.
But, if politicians willing to milk this political cow, want to logically extend it, they should pay for all school programs necessary because of the illegal alien invasion the federal government has failed to control, they should help keep alive every legitimate citizen who has lost a job because of the illegal alien invasion.
The federal and state governments should pay for medical coverage of every person injured, maimed, or killed by drunk drivers the governments allow because they refuse to actually regulate the liquor industry.
There is a ton of inconsistency in politicians opposing every social issue that impinges on a special interest, but leaping on programs to make whole those harmed by terrorism.
Mr. Wiken we need to cut cut cut spending not puff it up, sir. This spending you bleed out comes from your pocket and mine.
That is killer larry, way too funny. By the way, lets not call it "Socialized Medicine", lets call it Medicare for all. There, that was not too difficult and would even make grud a happy camper as we all contribute to Medicare, so how can that make you bleed? Problem solved. Now lets figure how our own Sarah NOem got elected.
Please clarify, Grudz: should we not spend money to cover medical bills for bombing victims?
Call what you will, Medicare, Socialized Medicine, Obamacare, whatever. A rose by any other name still smells the same. It doesn't work, It has been tried and failed over and over again. Besides the government is broke.
As far as trusting our government, how much did the GSA spend on their little fling in Vegas? Now we are grounding B-1 bombers to save money, yet we are building tanks our military doesn't want. We are fixing bridges that no one will use. Our congress, and legislature have not been very good at managing the budget, now you want them to manage all healthcare?
People are trying socialized medicine with the Boston bombing victims. They are socializing the costs.
Let's not let this general mistrust of government close our eyes to the possibility of working together and solving problems. Government is a tool that we can use to solve problems. My question remains: if it is o.k. for us to work together to solve problems for bombing victims, is it also o.k. for us to work together to solve problems for other people suffering illness and injury that will incur crippling medical expenses?
(And on those Abram tanks, Michael: President Obama wanted to stop production; Congress, Dems and GOP, especially the Ohio delegation representing the tank factory district, gave him heck for risking the industrial base of the economy.)
At least the victims won’t suffer financial burden with their unexpected tragedy. Let’s just be thankful to the helpers.
No problem working together to solve problems or end suffering. Where we start running into problem is when someone (the government) start taking what someone else believe I should be giving. Then using for something other than what it was taken for.
This is starting to make me a little mad. Last week we had a disaster in Texas that leveled a whole town. Yet we continue to milk the same old cow twenty four hours a day because a couple of yahoo's put some pressure cooker bombs on a street corner in Boston. When will we finally get through with this?
Texas fifteen killed and two hundred injured, and one whole town destroyed. The news just trivializes the Texas incident while glorifying the thing in Boston. While I'm betting that the event in the north was hard on those that were there, was it any better for the ones that live in that small town down south? Isn't it time for health care for all?
The same goes for murder of a kid. Is that kids life worth more somehow then a family that lost a child in a car accident? To cancer? Drowning in a pool? Yet we pick and choose what we want to feel good about reporting and how long we report on what. After all dead is dead, you cant bring em back.
Like the news that comes from everywhere trying to compete we are doing the same thing. When it comes to health care we are picking who should get health care and who shouldn't. It's time to stop taking sides and give health care to everyone.
It would reduce the total cost of care to everyone freeing up usable income for life in general and the future of their families. The way it is now that income will always be at risk. Why spend your whole life working for something when it can be taken away through no fault of your own?
Lets pay for this health insurance by doing two things. First lets stop the ever increasing payments to people that build in flood plains, hurricane infested coast lines, and to cities built below sea level. There I said it if you build in a flood plain the rest of us shouldn't have to share the risk, move it or loose it.
We pick and choose our disasters here to. The only thing separating FEMA from payments to people is the amount of people that are effected. If a big enough town is caught in a storm they will get federal assistance. But if a single farmer or rancher looses everything in a storm. Silence. Everyone lost, why are some treated better then others?
And lets cut military spending by forty percent. We wont miss it, the world wont be any worse for ware, and it will force the big babies that want to start fights all the time to stop the insanity. Five hundred bases over seas is an insult to the American people. Lets face it the only ones that would feel the pain of less military are the contractors and the big oil companies that we spend the money to protect. Right now it's like a private police force that someone else pays for, US, then we get to pay again at the pumps.
Lets switch some of that money to rebuilding our infrastructure. Our once proud country has fallen into disrepair because the people in congress want to fight about spending more over seas when they should be fighting about spending more here. Just like a house if you keep it up it will be worth more. I'm surprised that China would even want something like this, they already have something like this.
To recap. If you live in a flood plain move. If you live on a coast line, move. We are already paying a lot of people to live where they aren't supposed to live. Why is it so hard to come to the understanding that health insurance is of more value then these things? When are the thumb sucking, pampers peeing congress critters going to grow up and spend our money on something that really counts? The climate is ever changing, shouldn't we?
The Blindman
A rose that has been tried and has failed? Now, exactly where would that failure be located? You cannot be speaking of universal healthcare, because it does work and works very well all over the world including here in America with our Medicare. Go to some person that is disabled or 65 years of age or older and tell them that Medicare is a failure and you are going to eliminate it. Better yet, go to your parents or elderly family members and announce your displeasure with their healthcare. Good luck with that mc, thinking people will throw you out of the room. The government is not broke, not broke, not broke. Turn off the faux news and flush rush that will give your brain the enema it deserves. Obama Care will work and is already working. It may not be perfect, but what is?
It works, really? Is that why people are flocking to Canada for medical treatment? Risking their lives to get to the EU to have that lifesaving surgery?
If everyone gets the same level of care at no charge; what happens when there is a shortage of a drug or only a few doctors who can perform a procedure? Who is going to ration the care? Who gets treatment and who doesn’t, who lives and who dies? Who makes that decision? How can you even pretend to make this decision? And yes, it is personal; I have been down this road before.
A community coming together to help someone in need, to help with medical bills and other expenses, great, I am all for that. For the Federal government to get involved and decide who gets treated and who doesn’t; that dog don’t hunt.
Mr. Dithmer is correct. Bad things happen to people all the time and not welfare nor the government nor praying to the fishes will fix it.
Michael, the real test is whether Canadians are repealing their single-payer system. They are not. In 2004 CBC poll, Canadians named the father of Canada's Medicare system, Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas, the "greatest Canadian of all time."
"No problem working together to solve problems and end suffering." Agreed. And government is one of the tools we have available to do that. So again, where is the threshold that lies between paying for bombing victims' health care and paying for cancer victims' health care?
Bill offers a painful but important point: the Boston victims may get more financial support because the press chooses to give wall-to-wall coverage to that incident while underplaying the arguably larger disaster in Texas. Is that a fair way to allocate economic resource for health care? Should we pay for everyone's hospital bills in the Texas fertilizer plant explosion, too?
There is an ongoing disaster right here in Rapid causing health problems and cancer. When the prevailing wind is from the South, we breathe burning formaldehyde and who knows what else from Dakota Panel. When from the North, we breathe tons of Mercury, Lead, and Barium from the Cement Plant and BHP; dust and heavy metals from the gravel pits.
Wouldn't this plan for the bombing victims apply to Rapid City citizens?
http://toxic-release.findthedata.org/l/954518/Countertops-Inc-Dba-Dakota-Panel