Do this or I will come around and bop you on the nose no.3

[fpb]

The only good thing to come out of the MsScribe revelations affair has been that I have caught up with the details of the CharityWank affair, and specifically the health issues about a lady called Christina. The rest of it does not matter, but here is one person who, thanks to the wonders of private American medicine and insurance, is left in serious and life-threatening pain every stage of whose care sucks money from her family like Dracula. I am sympathetic to conservatives on a lot of things, but any conservative who wants to defend private medicine in the face of events like this is in my view a heartless so-and-so. However, never mind that. This lady needs help and needs help now. This is the address of her website: http://www.4christina.org/. I ASK EVERY PERSON WHO READS THIS TO VISIT IT AND DO WHAT YOU CAN. If you cannot give money, you can offer stuff to be sold on e-bay to raise funds, or even purchase items from Amazon through her rather than through any other source. Anything can help. But please, everyone who reads this, do something. And paste the address and story on your own LJs and websites. Spread the word. Get busy, dammit!

Comments

Re: Not you, too.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that is beside the point. Like the medical profession itself, which fought the Clinton National Health reforms tooth and nail, the insurance business has built up a great position on the lack of national or state provision for illness and disability. Do not tell me that, if the opportunity for a serious health reform came up, they would not oppose it. They would have to, because it would mean an immediate hit in their pockets. And so the forces that oppose a sensible health policy in the US are not only, as you claim, popular short-sightedness and selfishness, but some important corporate and social interests. I still say that the responsibility of the insurance business is nothing like that of the medical profession (one American doctor I met felt that the AMA had hated Bill and Hillary Clinton so much that it was they who had brought about the Whitewater investigation and Cigargate; that is obvious nonsense, but it gives you an idea of the ferocity of feelings unleashed), but as things stand, it stands against reform.

Re: Not you, too.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

Insurance is a short-term profit industry. All these years I thought it was all about reserves and only underwriting the people who wouldn’t get sick or die so we could invest the money and have it when most people would need it. All those years studying annuities and mortality and morbidity and compound interest must have brainwashed me. Thanks for clearing that misconception. I’ll start to work dismantling the system from within now.

Re: Not you, too.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I swear I do not understand what you think you are anwering. My whole point was about long-term loss of a whole market slice, if all citizens get basic health cover from the state. I am afraid you are showing rather more company patriotism than is wholly compatible with paying attention to what I actually say.

Re: Not you, too.

[chthonya]

Insurance is a short-term profit industry.

It is a long-term profit industry, surely? Or are health insurance companies in the US non-profit-distributing? If so, I apologise for my misunderanding of the situation.


All these years I thought it was all about reserves and only underwriting the people who wouldn’t get sick or die so we could invest the money and have it when most people would need it.

Yes, and energy companies are all about keeping the lights on and making sure we have the power to run the industry that maintains our way of life.

If they weren't successful in meeting those needs, they wouldn't be successful as businesses. But it doesn't follow that there is only one way of meeting those needs, and that companies will choose the one that is most beneficial to the interests of the citizen-on-the-street while ensuring the company can survive, rather than making the most profit for its shareholders. Indeed, in the UK at least, company law ensures that it is illegal for companies to do anything that would lessen shareholder profit.