1 PM Friday 22 September 2012 Nunhead Heights
“I am Obamacare. I’m 34 and my job does not provide benefits or health insurance. I was in pain for days and went to the ER. I discovered my uterus was full of tumors. I couldn’t pay for surgery and because I was now a “pre-existing condition” insurance companies could (and did!) turn me down for coverage. But because President Obama passed Health Care reform, I was able to get PCIP and the surgery I needed to get well. Thank you President Obama for helping me live and heal when others said no.”
A 34 year-old woman somewhere in America is diagnosed with tumors at a hospital emergency room. I saw it posted on facebook today. I hate those kind of posts but read every single one.
She wrote she couldn’t pay for surgery and because she had a “pre-existing condition”
the insurance companies turned her down for coverage.
First, of course you can’t get health insurance after you get sick. It’s like calling DirectLine, Churchill’s, the AA, or the RAC after the car accident and seeing if they’ll pay to have your car fixed. It’s called “insurance” for a reason.
And if she couldn’t afford insurance BEFORE she had the “tumors” how could she afford insurance afterwards? She didn’t say how.
No one in America is denied medical treatment because they don’t have the money to pay.
There would have been a hospital in her town that would have done her surgery. Then she would then have been presented with a bill for the surgery and expected to pay at a later date. Yes, she would be expected to pay for a service which other people pay for, either in cash or through their health insurance companies. And if she couldn’t pay, well, luckily there are no debtor’s prisons in America.
I explain Obamacare in a previous post.
This woman took a chance in not getting health insurance and she pocketed the money she saved. And she WON. Now she is covered by Obamacare at no cost or low cost! Now other people who actually paid for health insurance out of their own pockets are expected to pay for her.
This bit is about me:
Yesterday, I visited my doctor in East Dulwich. My GP is a lovely woman and she gave me ten minutes to tell her all my problems.
I told here that I stop breathing when I’m asleep and have been told I snore loudly. That I have been waking very often in the night to urinate. That my dodgy knee is acting up – three years after surgery. That I am having trouble sleeping and feel stressed. Oh, and my high blood pressure is still raging.
I had only ten minutes with her but given more time I am sure I would have come up with more ailments. Oh, I forgot. I did. I told her I didn’t feel that capable down there any more, if you know what I mean. Down there.
I walked out with an appointment with a sleep lab, tests scheduled for my PSA count and renal function, an appointment with joint doctor. I didn’t get the sleeping pills or the Valium I really wanted. I got another prescription for Viagra. I let the last prescription lapse as they were £8 a pill. Sex isn’t worth the money.
My point: Free and Unlimited health care is unsustainable either in America where it is led by private insurers or in the UK where it’s state-run. It will collapse under the weight of people like that horrible “I am Obamacare” woman with the tumors and horrible middle-aged and old people like me demanding health services and unwilling to pay for them. And you’re to blame, too.
And that is something you don’t read on facebook.
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Lewis Schaffer 
woah woah woah, state subsidised health care is unsustainable in the UK?! We’ve had it for a LONG time and it’s not collapsed. Why would you say that? I think it’s sick that the people who have the capabilities to provide health care to others charge them for it and expect profit.
Anyway, point is, the UK health care system is not unsustainable.
Our health care system is not free to those of us who are employed. we don’t pay for each service but have National Insurance contributiions deducted from our wages and part of that is for the NHS. People who are self employed and actually pay class 2 National Insurance contributions also pay towards the NHS! I did think that woman would have been able to be treated somewhere as I know the USA has free clinics for the poor, but was not aware she would get a bill to pay later, as and when she could. Try lavender oil sprinkled on your pillow to help you sleep-it sends you off to sleep and gives you a deep restful sleep, or Nytol that’s supposed to be good (not on your pillow-drink it), and try winding your inner demons down an hour before you want to go to bed, and don’t drink coffee after 5pm! And £8 for sex that’s not bad! ha ha!
Thanks for responding. The healthcare demands of the British are growing. Can you see that abating?
Is this why you didn’t vote for Obama?
who says I didn’t vote for Obama?