Are we ready to really be women?

[michelle64]

if we really do have a femme side which i personally believe some of us do then we should really consider thinking about truly supporting the FAB women in our lives..in the last week we have been told our beloved FAB's in our lives should delay breast exams and now cervical exams..people this is health care rationing and it does directly affect our loved ones...it is time those in so called power positions within the CD community or other come out and voice support that we do not want this current health bill being debated in congress..this is only the start of what i believe is detrimental health care rationing for those FAB loved ones in our life..it is really going to get stupid soon in my opinion...take care..michelle

[Sarah Doepner]

I don't want the government between me and my health care provider. That job has been reserved for my insurance company and judging byhow much I have to pay them, they must be doing a good job.

[Karren H]

Don't want to be a woman and don't want the government messing with my insurance!!

[Margot]

:2c:I don't get it! How can you look forward to having your private insurance cancelled if you get ill. Then you lose everything you have ever worked for in your life to pay your medical bills. Maybe I don't fully understand your system and ours is not perfect but if we need medical help we can get it.
Don't be afraid of government but be very afraid of insurance companies.
:hugs:
Margot from Canada.

[Lorileah]

The key word is recommend. It is a recommendation just like don't smoke, don't drink, don't walk in front of busses. No one says you HAVE to follow that recommendation. It is between YOU and YOUR PHYSICIAN (and probably the HMO< PPO> QRST they work for to make a profit).

Doctors are supposed to be in charge of your care. Not the Health care organizations. You and your doctor. The people rationing your health care are the people running your insurance providers. The MDs are told what they can and cannot do and it is due to the bottom line.

Try this from 2004 "Executives at the six largest non-profit, tax-exempt hospital systems all make more than $1.2 million a year, according to IRS documents and information provided by the organizations. The jobs come with generous benefits. One large system has given $5.1 million in forgivable loans to eight top executives since 1998. Another paid $185,427 last year so two executives could live in other states and commute to work. Hospital executives were the five most highly paid CEOs in the non-profit world."

Nothing in the recommendations made this week are governmental or effect the care you can receive. So don't make this about the governmental health care. It is about a group of people who went through data and decided that money could be spent more wisely elsewhere (like vacation homes in Aspen).

Are you going to bat for all FAB's out there? Try this, thousands of women in the US are without any health care at all. They cannot afford it (all you working stiffs your employer pays the largest part of your health insurance so if you lose your job...try paying 1500$ a month to keep what you have). Women who cannot afford health care are diagnosed with cancer far later than women with health care and are often beyond the time of treatment. Women in lower income or no income levels are at a far greater risk of dying of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, STD's, kidney failure....shall I go on? Don't sit there and pick your battles based on what you heard some talking head say will happen. Read what the report says. It is a recommendation, nothing more. Follow it, don't follow it. It is up to you.

[Sharon]

...... Try this, thousands of women in the US are without any health care at all.

Just a quick aside here -- it's actually many millions of women who have no medical insurance and many millions more whose insurance is inadequate.

[Stephenie S]

It is a national DISGRACE that we are the only industrialized nation in the WORLD that doesn't offer even basic health care to every one of it's citizens.

The insurance industry is spending 1.5 MILLION dollars a DAY to lobby against any change what so ever. And can you blame them? The insurance racket in this country is a cash cow that rakes in billions in profits for a very select few, while sentencing those who can't afford it or just plain can't GET it to using the emergency room for a healthcare clinic.

I hear this excuse ALL THE TIME. "I don't want the government messing around with my insurance."

That's all well and good if you HAVE insurance. And remember, it's not YOU that's paying the major costs here, it's your employer. Perhaps if your employer was not saddled with this incredibly huge financial obligation he could afford to hire more employees or perhaps stay in business at all.

The health of the American citized should NOT be a place to make a profit. EVERY American citizen should be able to get healthcare. To sentence those who, for whatever reason, don't have a good modern insurance plan paid for by their employer, to sickness and disease is, IMHO, uncivilized.

There is a WHOLE lot of money being spent by vested interests to fight any change in our healthcare for profit system. We need improvement. The changes proposed by congress are flawed and perhaps should not be passed, but we DO need to do SOMETHING to help the THOUSANDS (MILLIONS?) who don't have basic minimal healthcare in this great country. It's a shame we don't care for EVERYONE.

A single payer system would be a huge and painful change, but I suspect it's the only way. The insurance companies could always stay in business offering custom "designer" policies to those who, like our law makers, could afford them.

Lovies,
Stephenie

[AlisonRenee]

Am just SO not interested in hearing political fairytales....

Suffice to say that I have a very personal interest in being able to obtain healthcare insurance and -- if the present system remains in effect - I will be excluded from coverage due to a pre-existing condition. I take it personally.

I interviewed earlier this week for a job I would dearly love to have - just one little problem. It's a small company... and there's no health insurance. I'm on Cobra for ... awhile... and after that, I'm in deep trouble.

Please. We've all got opinions about this issue and this forum just isn't the place. Why make enemies amongst ourselves?

If Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann wants to show up here en femme and talk girl talk, I'm all ears. If it's anything else, they can take it all home to their core audiences, who are all too willing to listen - in the appropriate venue.

[DeeInGeorgia]

I don't want the government between me and my health care provider. That job has been reserved for my insurance company and judging byhow much I have to pay them, they must be doing a good job.


You have to love the health insurance companies. They are the true Death Boards. 1984 came true, only it was the corporations that are big brother. They control government, they control media, health coverage, everything.

Deanna

[JackieInPA]

What will probably end up happening is what happened what happened to a lot of drugs. The ins companies will go with and if you want the one on the 'odd'years you will have to pay outta pocket and they will say like always they are not STOPPING u but they just dont cover it.

[Hope]

It is a national embarrassment that we allow money to be more important than healthcare, for men, women, children or anyone for that matter.

There are millions of women without access to healthcare in this country right now. And there are just as many men in the same position. We should be far more ashamed of ourselves than we are.

The Germans have a word for those who would withhold care from those who need it, simply because they lack the resources to pay, who literally say "your money or your life." Backpfeifengesicht. Look it up.

This isn't about being a woman or a man, this is about being a F#(&!#g person.

[Stephanie Miller]

Hope - You shouldn't be embaressed as an American. Nobody ( women, children or me) is denied healthcare in America. Walk into any emergency room and they can't turn you away by law.

Where I get mad about spending money is on healthcare that is wasted.

http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/upload/GOPSum-PPACAct.pdf

Or possibly paying bribes in order to get this bill passed..;

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana.

Or me paying for healthcare for millions of Non Americans that entered this country illegally.
Or for me to pay for those Americans that CAN afford it but elect to not purchase it.

If ANY group of people come up with a bill that helps people that is honest,
count me in. Until then I don't want a government telling me how to budget my money and who to donate it to when they can't do it right themselves.

[AlisonRenee]

There are two public hospitals in the metro area where I live. In both, there have been instances of people dying in the waiting room - obvious trauma cases have to be seen first, and the public hospitals get the gunshot and stabbing victims, bleeding all over the place. Someone with a heart problem that doesn't look critical can be overlooked until it's too late. It's happened.

Had I gone to the public hospital without insurance a couple of years ago and been sent to the waiting room pending triage, I wouldn't be here now. I walked into the place under my own power, and didn't look "bad" - just had symptoms that could have been heart related. I coded in the emergency room twenty minutes later - fortunately in the presence of the doctors, who had some trouble getting me going again. Had I been in the waiting room in a crowd of other uninsured people, I wouldn't have had much of a chance.

I've worked all my life since I was 16 - this is a matter of pride for me, I don't like being dependent, and always had employer-provided health insurance - but I'm now laid-off for the second time in five years and I may no longer qualify for health insurance with the pre-existing condition. I doubt I'm the only one in this country with this concern.

Insurance matters. Until you've been there, you don't realize how much it matters.

[VeronicaMoonlit]

We already have rationing, it's called if you don't have insurance, you don't go to the doctor.

I'm 42 years old, and I just qualified for my first health insurance. I've never had it before. It's been years since I've seen a general practitioner for a general health checkup. Dentist? what's that? I've had certain problems with my genito-urinary tract ever since I was young (it's partly congenital), this year my urethra basically closed up. I had to go to an emergency room, and eventually got sent to a hospital where they tried to fix it, but failed. I was there a couple of weeks, total cost of my stay was almost 80000 dollars..that's 80 thousand dollars. Do you want to know how much money I made last year? oh about $15000. Then they sent me home with a catheter which I kept for a couple of months until a permanent fix was suggested, a perineal urethrotomy. Basically my urethral opening was moved to below my testes. I sit to pee. And that cost even more money.

So what was I supposed to do...not pee and die? So it pisses me off when overprivileged twats with money to burn on wigs, a ****ton of clothes ( I haven't bought any femme clothes/shoes in YEARS because of medical expenses relating to my problems since 2004), conferences and whatnot tell me that the government should stay out of the health care business, when every ****ing year fewer people have insurance. And again, I have never had it till just now. When the ****ing hospital/doctor collection agencies (multiple ones) want over $100 a month that I simply don't have. When a doctor can spend less than 3 minutes with you (hi howareya here's some tetracycline) and charge $50 plus.

I, personally, want to transition, that costs a lot of money. P-doc for approval for hormones, what's that? Hair removal? what's that. Estrogen? What's that.

There's this called the internet, it lets you communicate with people who live in places where the government runs health care, like say, Canada, the UK, New Zealance, Australia. They are appalled when I tell them things like this. They are appalled when I tell them how some local people have had bake sales and fundraisers to help pay for medical care. No one should have to do that.

Hell, if memory serves me well, a government run insurance system was proposed decades ago. And the medical industry and those of wealth and power kept stopping it. Well **** them. in civilized countries the government runs health care and that's as it should be. The government works for us, private industry is all about profit and if you're not a big enough profit, they'll **** you over, big time.

What I want is a system like the NHS in the UK, but that's "socialist" or " communist". What the hell is wrong with people these days when anything other than crackpot excessive selfishness is being a "pinko". If that's the case, I'm proud to be a liberal pinko commie socialist. I actually give a damn about people who don't have health care, and think a health care pool of the entire US population would save money and cover everyone.

and Stephanie, yes you can go to the emergency room, they can't deny you "emergency" treatment. but all they really have to do is by law is stabilize you, then they can street you. And they'll bill you for any treatment. So people who can't pay, won't go till it gets so bad they have to go and then it will cost even more.

Veronica Rogers

[sheidelmeidel]

:2c:

Insurance companies are not to blame - that is a myth invented by politicians because they need a scapegoat and love to take power. It's the government's incestuous relationship with unions and their need to control our lives and tax us for everything that creates the problem. They want to tell you how to live and how to die and what to look like. One of the proposals is to add a 5% surcharge to all elective surgery. So all of you thinking about SRS or implants or what have you better recalculate. I'm sure many of you remember the old Beatles song Taxman: "I'm the taxman and your'e working for no one but me". It was true in 1965, it's much more true today. Wait till they decide that cosmetics, breast forms and wigs are included in your personal care rationing quota so they can tax you another 20% and make you fill out a form and wait for a government stamp before you buy them....

If insurance companies were allowed to compete across state lines without restriction in an open market, and individuals could have a tax free account to use for their health insurance instead of it being bound up with their jobs, everyone, male, female and everything in between, would have affordable health insurance, just like they have cell phones and internet access and cars.

:2c:

[AlisonRenee]

...and Stephanie, yes you can go to the emergency room, they can't deny you "emergency" treatment. but all they really have to do is by law is stabilize you, then they can street you. And they'll bill you for any treatment. So people who can't pay, won't go till it gets so bad they have to go and then it will cost even more.

Veronica Rogers

-- Exactly. Thank you.

(And I knew this was going to happen: this subject has been beaten bloody by the squawking heads on talk radio and cable pseudo-news, and I was so hopeful that we could have left it there. But, I guess not.)

[VeronicaMoonlit]

:2c:

Insurance companies are not to blame - that is a myth invented by politicians because they need a scapegoat and love to take power. It's the government's incestuous relationship with unions and their need to control our lives and tax us for everything that creates the problem.

Oh really? That's funny, that $15000 I made was while I was a member of a union, SEIU Local 880. Do you know what I did? I was a personal aide to those with disabilities....and I had no insurance myself. Do you know why my job paid so little, becuase it is usually done by women (and especially african american women in the cities) it is valued so low by us as a people that it pays so little.


Wait till they decide that cosmetics, breast forms and wigs are included in your personal care rationing quota so they can tax you another 20% and make you fill out a form and wait for a government stamp before you buy them....


Considering there's places like Canada and the UK that have had government run health care for decades and such a thing hasn't happened I'm calling bullshit on your crackpot conspiracy nonsense.


If insurance companies were allowed to compete across state lines without restriction in an open market, and individuals could have a tax free account to use for their health insurance instead of it being bound up with their jobs, everyone, male, female and everything in between, would have affordable health insurance, just like they have cell phones and internet access and cars.

Everyone has cell phones, internet and cars? I don't think so. We've had a free market system for decades and it doesn't work. Public plans work, we know this from the examples in Scandinavia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Australia and practically every other civilized country on the planet. Even Richard Nixon knew a public plan would be a good thing.

Veronica Rogers.

[Fab Karen]

Hope - You shouldn't be embaressed as an American. Nobody ( women, children or me) is denied healthcare in America. Walk into any emergency room and they can't turn you away by law.

Or possibly paying bribes in order to get this bill passed..;

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana.

Or me paying for healthcare for millions of Non Americans that entered this country illegally.
Or for me to pay for those Americans that CAN afford it but elect to not purchase it.

If ANY group of people come up with a bill that helps people that is honest,
count me in. Until then I don't want a government telling me how to budget my money and who to donate it to when they can't do it right themselves.
Society at large pays for those people to be cared for by those hospitals. One way or another, it has to be paid for. The healthcare bill is a cheaper, better way to get people care ( before they run to an emergency room when they're sick enough to make it life or death )

Under the bill, Americans who can afford it but elect NOT to, will be fined.
Illegal immigrants will not be covered under the Democratic bill.

Even IF that is true, Katrina didn't happen. It isn't STILL a major disaster area that needs rebuilding. People are fine there, don't need any help. And I've got property to sell on the Moon.



"keep gummint outta my Medicare" - :doh:

[AlisonRenee]

We've had a free market system for decades and it doesn't work. Public plans work, we know this from the examples in Scandinavia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Australia and practically every other civilized country on the planet. Even Richard Nixon knew a public plan would be a good thing.

Veronica Rogers.

I'll half-disagree with some of this, Veronica. Free markets work, when they're really free, and supply/demand can do what they're supposed to do.

The problem is that we don't have free markets in this country. We call them free, but they're fiddled and diddled to artificially jack up prices - and protect investors from losing money. We dilute and neuter the rules to make sure it works that way. Who pays for that?

We do.

The right fought Medicare tooth-and-nail until 1965, and the same arguments we hear today were heard then. Ironic that we now hear people saying "get the government out of my Medicare".

[Stephanie Miller]

I agree with a lot of both sides in the health care debate. BUT... I do not agree that we just grab the first piece of garbage that is thrown to the public because we "need" something. Why is this so important to ramrod through without time to think it over, civil debates or even time to read 2000 plus pages when it's not even planned on being implimented for THREE YEARS!
I say yes lets work on something. Take some time and do it right. Yes let's cut out the "pork" and yes lets make it for LEGAL AMERICANS only. No let's not let the government be in charge. They need to clean their own house before running ours.

[sheidelmeidel]

Side 1 The proposed healthcare bill. All I have to say to that is "Constitution of the United States?? Who gives a rat's a$$ about that"



If you decided to become a CD in Iran or Saudi Arabia, you'd find that you would give a lot more than a rat's a$$ for the protection of our Constitution. They'd probably decide to make you 'the woman you want to be' through castration - without the benefit of anesthesia.

[skirtsuit]

Free markets work, when they're really free, and supply/demand can do what they're supposed to do.

That is completely false no matter what economists say. It's easy to be seduced by the beautiful graphs of supply and demand, but there is NO evidence that the real world works that way.

The financial crisis that nearly shut down our economy way mainly caused by the completely unregulated 'shadow' banking system - markets that were expressly created to be unregulated. The 'invisible hand' of the market is an excuse for rich people getting richer.

The mega coprorations in this country love the free market, supply and demand BS because it allows them to continue stealling and laying waste to everything in sight.

Just my 2 pence.

Ann / SS

[Lorileah]

Hope - You shouldn't be embaressed as an American. Nobody ( women, children or me) is denied healthcare in America. Walk into any emergency room and they can't turn you away by law.



Not true. The rule states that they have to stabilize you and be able to send you else where for further treatment. They don't have to treat you for anything that is not life threatening. Oh and you will be billed believe me.

[sheidelmeidel]

I agree with a lot of both sides in the health care debate. BUT... I do not agree that we just grab the first piece of garbage that is thrown to the public because we "need" something. Why is this so important to ramrod through without time to think it over, civil debates or even time to read 2000 plus pages when it's not even planned on being implimented for THREE YEARS!
I say yes lets work on something. Take some time and do it right. Yes let's cut out the "pork" and yes lets make it for LEGAL AMERICANS only. No let's not let the government be in charge. They need to clean their own house before running ours.

:thumbsup: Stephanie that is a wonderful post and expresses my sentiments exactly. WHAT IS THE RUSH? The President was out there trying to coerce Congress into signing that bill before anybody even had a chance to read it! What does that tell us?

Unfortunately, the answer to these questions has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with what's actually good for the citizens of the USA. :thumbsdn:

[suchacutie]

There are a certain number of people in the US uninsured. Ok, that's not right. So, just provide insurance for them..period. But no, that's not good enough! We have to mess with the rest who are not unhappy with what they have.

Congress, provide health care to those who need it, and leave the rest alone. It's that simple. Once that's done, if there is a next step, we can debate that at our leisure since no one will be without basic health-care coverage!

my :2c:

tina

[Lorileah]

uh, that was what the original plan was, you could keep what you have. Did that change somewhere I missed?

[tonixd]

I'm on the 'lets fix the whole damn system' not the 'lets **** around alot in congress' idea.
The whole thing is the problem, not just the insurance companies.

Medical research: for profit.
Doctors: for profit.
Drug Companies: for profit.
Insurance Companies: for profit.

Hospitals: not for profit

What do we see wrong with this picture? Most of the medical industry is trying to make money off of sickness!!
Change that fact, and the whole system gets a whole lot better.

[sheidelmeidel]

T

The financial crisis that nearly shut down our economy way mainly caused by the completely unregulated 'shadow' banking system - markets that were expressly created to be unregulated.



Actually, it was a team effort that in it no way reflects on the free market system, without which we wouldn't have sites like this to post on. Those stories about the death of capitalism and free markets are grossly exaggerated.

Bankers did what they are supposed to, which is look for ways to make money and protect their money (which is actually your money). But the system was put in place by politicians from both sides of the aisle: the Dems who pushed through legislation forcing banks to lend to people who weren't credit worthy, and the GOP who pushed through deregulation and turned a blind eye to the shadow banking system.

[VeronicaMoonlit]

I agree with a lot of both sides in the health care debate. BUT... I do not agree that we just grab the first piece of garbage that is thrown to the public because we "need" something. Why is this so important to ramrod through without time to think it over, civil debates or even time to read 2000 plus pages when it's not even planned on being implimented for THREE YEARS!

Where have you been the last couple of decades? We as a people have been discussing this for years. We know what works from the examples other countries give us. Every time this sort of thing has been brought up it's been "we need more time and studies to examine this further" We've done that for decades! We know it's thr right thing to do, we know it will work, so why not just do it.


Take some time and do it right. Time? We've been wasting time, this sort of thing has been proposed before. It's not new at all.


yes lets make it for LEGAL AMERICANS only.

Ahhh you westerners and your obsession with the Mexicans. You know, if conditions were better in Mexico, they'd stay there. But US industry likes having a banana republic right next door for the cheap labor. So they come here, looking for a better life, just like our ancestors did. Of course since the Native american tribes didn't have machine guns they didn't call use "Illegals" or "wetbacks" We just wiped them most of them out and put the remaining ones on land no one wanted. Aren't we nice. And these new people, why we pay them crap and sometimes put them into slavery in sweatshops and hire them to mow our lawns or bus our tables, but we don't want them living here....oh no. And then we complain abou them and say we have to hire them because no american wants to bus tables or wipe shit off of babies, or now lawns. Well they might, if we paid a fair living wage for that hard work. But we don't value that work, so we don't.



No let's not let the government be in charge. They need to clean their own house before running ours.

So we should just let private industry run it? Well considering how big business is all "let the free market be unregulated so we can make tons of money in the US that we will say was earned in the Caymans so we won't have to pay any taxes on it because 5 houses and 2 vacations in Aspen a year just isn't enough" until they **** shit up and then come begging for public money, I don' tthink we can trust big business to do squat.

Government works for me, and I trust them far more than any businessman who will just **** me over any way he can in the name o fthe "God of the Bottom Line."

It wasn't government that sold their TV making operations to Matsushita knowing that Matsushit would just shut down the plants because they just wanted US company brand. It wasn't government that refused to upgrade the plant over time to keep up with technology because it would cost too much money and was bad for the short term bottom line. It wasn't government that lied to their employees about how their jobs were safe with the sale and refused to pay for moving/relocating expenses for those who wanted to stay with the company, thus forcing many blue collar folks to stay with the plant. And who also said that unless people relocated on their own they couldn't apply for a job at a different branch. No, it wasn't government, it was Motorola, and they did that to my late mother back in the 70's. So tell me again why I should trust any corporate suit with my life.

Government has always treated me well and has never ****ed me over any way like that. If I call up government I'm not going to get someone in Mumbai, like I would calling up say JC Penney, who sacrificed their US call center staff to the Gods of Short Term Profit and the Bottom Line.

I posted my income last year in this thread...how much did you make? It's time we talked about class issues in America.

Veronica Rogers

[Shelly Preston]

Well since this is no longer about health care its being closed