Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 2882-2886 (26-30 January 2015)
Smallest:
--- Quote from: jheartney on 27 Jan 2015, 14:09 ---
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 27 Jan 2015, 13:27 ---Down at the destitution level, there's government-funded care under the Medicaid program. It's federally funded but states can set their own rules. I just read that in Texas an annual income of $4,000 makes you too rich to qualify for Medicaid. The PPACA was supposed to expand eligibility but states can and do refuse to implement that.
--- End quote ---
Part of the Affordable Care Act was Medicaid Expansion to catch low income people. Helpful Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices decided to make Medicaid Expansion voluntary, so states with Republican governors could go on merrily screwing the poor. Lucky for Faye, she's in Massachusetts, so this doesn't affect her.
--- End quote ---
Every now and then someone mentions that if we keep voting for the conservatives, we're going to get privatized health care, and this is (part of) why it terrifies me. It's pretty much my biggest nightmare. I can't imagine having to pay for consultations, let alone necessary medical treatment. It seems ridiculous enough that some offices have a fee for 'see boss, I was sick!' notes.
--- Quote from: Emperor Norton on 27 Jan 2015, 14:44 ---Having dealt with being poor and having to go to the Emergency room several times for various injuries while having no insurance, there are also other things you can look into. [...]
Hilariously, I pay more for them now that I'm paying enormous health insurance premiums every month... I would say the biggest health care burden isn't on the poor, but on the lower middle class. People who make too much for any assistance, which is where I am now. Seeing a specialist doctor, WITH insurance, eats into most of my discretionary budget for the month just with my copay. My wife currently needs a surgery but it will cost us about 3k that we don't have. She had a similar surgery when we were pretty broke and it cost us only 500 dollars (everything was covered by medicaid except the anesthetist).
Not having insurance at all is life ruining if something happens, but even having insurance in the US is a joke unless its REALLY good insurance.
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Kept more because it bears repeating, but re: the bolded statement: Monetarily, I absolutely agree. I have always been poor-to-lower middle. However, I'd definitely say lower middle is easier in that you are a lot more able to access your care than a poor person eligible for a lot of resources often is.
Smallest:
--- Quote from: Natswash on 27 Jan 2015, 14:46 ---I was retracked onto the introduction of May via another thread and right after it came this: http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2522 (sorry I don't know how to link). Does anyone think this was serious or was it just Faye being Faye?
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If she's mad enough, she probably has a few things she could open a case about (or just revenge call the health inspector about the spiders and the time with the raccoon and stuff). I doubt she has substantial folders on everything Dora's done wrong, especially after she worked there a few months and established that Dora wouldn't try to screw her over. I doubt she'd act on it, if she does. She might have, if she found a sleazy lawyer the same day she got fired, since she was mad, but she'll have cooled down by the time she leaves and probably even had Dora visiting in the hospital by then.
Also, that she has things to open one about doesn't mean I think she'd win it or even avoid being countersued if it came to it.
Emperor Norton:
--- Quote from: Smallest on 27 Jan 2015, 14:48 ---Kept more because it bears repeating, but re: the bolded statement: Monetarily, I absolutely agree. I have always been poor-to-lower middle. However, I'd definitely say lower middle is easier in that you are a lot more able to access your care than a poor person eligible for a lot of resources often is.
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Oh, good lord yes. General Practitioners especially. Do you know how hard it is to find a GP that accepts Medicaid. The only one I could find was this very frighteningly stern black lady who always wore sandals and had the most disturbingly calloused feet, was about a 30 minute drive from my house, and was always super crowded. Also, she just intimidated me.
I was so happy when I could go back to my old doctor after my wife got a job at a hospital and I got insurance through her job.
And if you are in that weird "can't afford insurance, but also can't qualify for Medicaid" section, you get more fun, because the only way to get reliable care is free clinics (which are harder and harder to find) and emergency rooms. IN FACT, one of the reasons Emergency Rooms are so expensive is because of people who can't really afford to go anywhere else, so they go there when they have stuff that is super not an emergency and they can't pay so the hospital has to eat it for the most part.
Actually, it gets worse, the state I'm in has laws about overlapping areas of care, so when the hospital wanted to open up a clinic across the street from the ER, they found out they couldn't even though it would be cheaper all around for everyone because the law said that they couldn't open a clinic in the same area an ER could cover.
Smallest:
--- Quote from: Emperor Norton on 27 Jan 2015, 14:56 ---
--- Quote from: Smallest on 27 Jan 2015, 14:48 ---Kept more because it bears repeating, but re: the bolded statement: Monetarily, I absolutely agree. I have always been poor-to-lower middle. However, I'd definitely say lower middle is easier in that you are a lot more able to access your care than a poor person eligible for a lot of resources often is.
--- End quote ---
Oh, good lord yes. General Practitioners especially. Do you know how hard it is to find a GP that accepts Medicaid. The only one I could find was this very frighteningly stern black lady who always wore sandals and had the most disturbingly calloused feet, was about a 30 minute drive from my house, and was always super crowded. Also, she just intimidated me.
I was so happy when I could go back to my old doctor after my wife got a job at a hospital and I got insurance through her job.
And if you are in that weird "can't afford insurance, but also can't qualify for Medicaid" section, you get more fun, because the only way to get reliable care is free clinics (which are harder and harder to find) and emergency rooms. IN FACT, one of the reasons Emergency Rooms are so expensive is because of people who can't really afford to go anywhere else, so they go there when they have stuff that is super not an emergency and they can't pay so the hospital has to eat it for the most part.
Actually, it gets worse, the state I'm in has laws about overlapping areas of care, so when the hospital wanted to open up a clinic across the street from the ER, they found out they couldn't even though it would be cheaper all around for everyone because the law said that they couldn't open a clinic in the same area an ER could cover.
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I don't, and I doubt I can imagine it. However, I have been too poor and too far out of town to be able to see a GP. I at least had one, since I lived by my parents' family doctor, but no way of getting to him. Also, no hospital/urgent care within 50 minutes or so. Since living in cities there have always been walk in clinics when I didn't have my own GP (I sort of do now, thanks to a nice receptionist/the doctor's wife at a walk in clinic/family doctor's) and hospitals in emergencies, but even then scraping up bus fair is hard at times. Again with the 'I can't imagine having to pay for the doctor,' since I know we make a bit over what counts as dirt eating poor and thus would have to.
bhtooefr:
It's worth noting with involuntary care, if you are insured, you have to pay the co-pay.
Also, as far as Faye not being able to afford glasses... in the US, vision and dental care are another add-on on top of your insurance, they don't come by default. I take them (and need the vision, I wear bifocals, although I don't actually use it that often (my vision isn't changing, so it's just wear and tear on the glasses that makes me go in and get new ones)), but many don't.
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