Interesting Clip US Greatest Country in the World?

viciokie wrote:another waste of money although a bit funny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHe-zXm17Pc

At least they were classy enough to parody star trek, and not star wars.......


(ducks for cover) XD

Poker, "Full video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdFUjNqwpok make up your own mind. My opinion ICK!"

Mange, <That makes two thumbs down.>

"This video proves the fact IRS agents' sense of humor is surgically removed on their hiring."

<Could be. Well on a lighter note Adolf Hitler reacts to Obama's win.>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuG1SVLvM6Q&feature=fvwp&NR=1

Poker & Mange

"@ Spacekiwi according to viciokie's video, link below, they also spoofed Gilligan's Island too. Star Wars storm troopers are a perfect rendition of the IRS in IMHO."

viciokie wrote:another waste of money although a bit funny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHe-zXm17Pc

pokermind wrote:Poker, "Full video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdFUjNqwpok make up your own mind. My opinion ICK!"

Mange, <That makes two thumbs down.>

"This video proves the fact IRS agents' sense of humor is surgically removed on their hiring."

<Could be. Well on a lighter note Adolf Hitler reacts to Obama's win.>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuG1SVLvM6Q&feature=fvwp&NR=1

Poker & Mange

"@ Spacekiwi according to viciokie's video, link below, they also spoofed Gilligan's Island too. Star Wars storm troopers are a perfect rendition of the IRS in IMHO."

viciokie wrote:another waste of money although a bit funny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHe-zXm17Pc

IRS = Stormtroopers? agreed. especially as they only ever seem to end up causing blue on blue incidents like this one.

Watching a "Reality TV show" recently, compiled from police dash cameras from around the world this week, I saw what appeared to be a bizarre incident. Police in the US were dispatched to investigate a car that had been stranded in a freeway break down zone for an hour. On arrival they were looking in the driver's window and the audio conversation had the driver saying that he had a long standing heart condition, had been having a heart attack for the hour but refused to call an ambulance because - he had lost his job, had lost welfare due to the time spent on it, and had no money or medical insurance. The cops called an ambulance while commencing first aid, but the driver died anyway. Now assuming that this US made TV show is genuine, what developed country would put a citizen in the situation where - their welfare was time limited, they didn't have free emergency ambulance or medical care, and felt that their only option was to die like a dog on the side of a road?
Can the US members here please reassure me that this was a beat up? Certainly wouldn't happen in the countries I know well.

Watching a "Reality TV show" recently, compiled from police dash cameras from around the world this week, I saw what appeared to be a bizarre incident. Police in the US were dispatched to investigate a car that had been stranded in a freeway break down zone for an hour. On arrival they were looking in the driver's window and the audio conversation had the driver saying that he had a long standing heart condition, had been having a heart attack for the hour but refused to call an ambulance because - he had lost his job, had lost welfare due to the time spent on it, and had no money or medical insurance. The cops called an ambulance while commencing first aid, but the driver died anyway. Now assuming that this US made TV show is genuine, what developed country would put a citizen in the situation where - their welfare was time limited, they didn't have free emergency ambulance or medical care, and felt that their only option was to die like a dog on the side of a road?
Can the US members here please reassure me that this was a beat up? Certainly wouldn't happen in the countries I know well.

The current (pre-Obamacare) health care system is somewhat of a mix.

1. Elderly get care through Medicare from the government. The middle/upper classes supplement this with privately purchased Medigap policies that cover the holes.

2. People working for medium to large size companies, people with union membership and government employees are covered by group policies purchased by the company, union or government employer. They pay part of the cost. The employer/union pays part of the cost.

3. People who are poor are covered by Medicaid (aka welfare). They also are covered by simply showing up at the emergency room demanding care. The hospital will attempt to bill for this but will eventually write it off as a loss since suing them would be a further waste of money since they have no resources to win.

4. A small % of people buy private insurance as individual policies. These are expensive but sort of affordable if you have good health. Good luck paying for one if you don't.

5. The people without insurance at all (about 15% of the population) are the self employed who can't afford individual policies, part time employees, low wage employees etc. Lawsuits do affect this group as they often have some assets (not a huge amount of money, but whatever they've managed to carefully save and put away).

So basically the elderly, poor, middle class and upper class are covered. The lower middle class gets hit.

Why your victim thought he wasn't covered I don't know. Since he is poor, he should be even if he is not eligible for other welfare programs. The ER will give you the medicaid application forms and help you fill them out. I've seen them do this. Or he could just go to the ER and walk away from the bill. They can't sue him, he doesn't have any assets. Could this have been a pseudo-suicide? He sounds very depressed and if he realized he was having a heart attack, he may have deliberately not called for help.

Obamacare was supposed to fix this in theory. In reality it is a mess. It is 1000s of pages of new law, 10,000s of pages of new regulation, some of which contradict each other. There have already be multiple lawsuits and are likely to be more. This is NOT a carefully crafted well thought out solution! Most of it is not in place yet, but based on what the analysts are saying, some things will be improved other things will actually be made worse. On the made worse side:

1. Loss of catastrophic polices. Because of the requirements of what a minimum insurance plan must contain catastrophic policies will no longer be available. These are popular cheap entry level policies which only cover major things, the type of things that can bankrupt you. Otherwise you pay for everything out of pocket. But since those big things are the things people worry about most, this policy protects them.

2. The shall issue problem combined with a minimal fine. This is a problem that we have in Massachusetts with our version of Obamacare and Obamacare has the same flaw. Basically the fine for not having insurance is less than the cost of a policy. Plus there is a rule that policies shall be issued regardless of pre-existing condition. So what is happening is that healthy people are waiting until they are injured, (for example tear up their kneed in a sporting event) then get insurance and once the surgery and rehab is over dropping the insurance again. Since they are not paying their fair share of the insurance costs, the burden falls on the rest of the policy holders raising their rates. There are ways around this: raise the fine or only issue policies at set times of the year for example every January or put in place a 6 month delay before pre-existing conditions are covered etc. But none are part of the current Obamacare.

Daryl wrote:Watching a "Reality TV show" recently, compiled from police dash cameras from around the world this week, I saw what appeared to be a bizarre incident. Police in the US were dispatched to investigate a car that had been stranded in a freeway break down zone for an hour. On arrival they were looking in the driver's window and the audio conversation had the driver saying that he had a long standing heart condition, had been having a heart attack for the hour but refused to call an ambulance because - he had lost his job, had lost welfare due to the time spent on it, and had no money or medical insurance. The cops called an ambulance while commencing first aid, but the driver died anyway. Now assuming that this US made TV show is genuine, what developed country would put a citizen in the situation where - their welfare was time limited, they didn't have free emergency ambulance or medical care, and felt that their only option was to die like a dog on the side of a road?
Can the US members here please reassure me that this was a beat up? Certainly wouldn't happen in the countries I know well.

Unfortunately probably not fake.

One thing though, when something in this area came up on another forum, i remember a US member there who was apparently a doctor, he remarked that it was terribly common for people not to use the free healthcare that does exist, it seems many didn´t even know that it did exist at all.
More or less #3 on Biochem´s list, probably.


*****

Obamacare was supposed to fix this in theory. In reality it is a mess. It is 1000s of pages of new law, 10,000s of pages of new regulation, some of which contradict each other. There have already be multiple lawsuits and are likely to be more. This is NOT a carefully crafted well thought out solution! Most of it is not in place yet, but based on what the analysts are saying, some things will be improved other things will actually be made worse.

Yeah it´s sad. It´s better than before it, but far from what is needed. And as you say, it´s VERY messed up, so some of the good parts will probably get drowned out.

Yeah it´s sad. It´s better than before it, but far from what is needed. And as you say, it´s VERY messed up, so some of the good parts will probably get drowned out.

I'm leaning toward slightly worse myself. Obamacare subsidizes insurance for the not quite poor i.e. some of that 15% that isn't covered. But insurance costs are going way up without the availability of the cheap policies, with guaranteed issue abuse, and with the compliance costs associated with 10,000s of pages of regulations. So some people who were barely able to afford insurance previously will no longer be able to afford it (and won't be poor enough to qualify for subsidies) and thus will become uninsured. So we'll have both newly insured people and newly uninsured people. If the two balance out, we'll still have 15% uninsured (they'll just be different individuals than before) but it will cost a whole lot more money. Getting the same thing for more money is a negative outcome.