China: Woman tries to sell daughter to help hospitalized husband
Please buy my daughter. My husband is waiting for surgery fees in the hospital as his boss ran away. I would like to see my daughter and save my husband. Boss fled after industrial accident and we don’t have the money for treatment.
I’m willing to sell my child to save her father.
~ A sign held by Chinese migrant worker Ni Qiong (pictured) in desperation to help pay for her injured husband’s surgeon’s fees in China, The Daily Mail via POP Sugar, December 16
So sad. :(
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And yet some argue that having health insurance guarantees has nothing to do with dignity and valuing human life.
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Ex-GOP, you are assuming that her lack of care for her daughter comes from her lack of health insurance. Simply giving people money usually doesn’t make them better people. Everyone has health insurance in Belgium (by law, like in America), yet they euthanize children there.
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I’m assuming only what she is telling us – that she doesn’t have funds to pay for care, so she’s doing what she thinks she has to do to get those funds.
Belgium’s euthanasia component has nothing to do with ability to pay.
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This kind of stuff used to happen in the Great Depression, here. Ex definitely has a point that a social safety net can help guard against these type of things.
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Why is the solution to sell their baby girl? Will the two older girls be sold off next?
The article noted that several strangers gave her money, but none offered to buy her daughter.
So while this baby is at risk for being illegally sold like a piece of meat, we’re blaming a lack of universal healthcare.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the devaluing of life in general in China, especially that of baby girls. (Unless, of course, you’re a sex trafficker. Then they have value.)
Someone needs to set up a fund for this family so that those of us who hear this story around the world can give for this man’s care, and the family can stay together so that another little girl is NOT victimized.
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Kel –
I’m not going to blame a lack of universal healthcare – all that I’m personally saying is that economic policies impact people’s lives. When a bill needs to be paid, people will make decisions – both good and bad decisions to pay that bill.
So in this country, there are some people who think that maternity care shouldn’t be covered – and then scoff when women have abortions citing economic insecurity.
We’d love if everybody’s morality was the same as ours – but it isn’t – and to some, we make the economic choices for them.
So all I’m saying is, if we put somebody in a desperate situation, let’s not be that surprised when they make a desperate decision.
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Found some more info on this case – the hospital bill is roughly $17,000 (100,000 Yuan). It says she is a migrant worker – average salary of a migrant worker in China is about 250 yuan a month – so 400 months pay and she’s there.
Again – shame on a nation that values life so little, and values health so little that you can allow a situation like this.
But shame on people – even many on this site, who want to make it economically harder on people when it comes to things like health care and wages, yet don’t understand how they would make desperate decisions in desperate times.
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Ex-GOP, for all that non-assumption on the part of this woman, you go and make a worse assumption that many of us here want to make it harder on people to receive medical care. Just because I don’t want government to run the health care industry (as they do every industry in China) doesn’t mean I want people to die in the streets. You use the end result of left-wing politics and economics over there to insist those who don’t lean left here are heartless. You look at that Chinese women and demand we give greater power to government here. I look at that woman and I see what happens when government becomes the sole landowner and their people the serfs.
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Chris –
Maybe I just don’t live in the world of unicorns and rainbows that others on this board are.
But when people say they want to dismantle health care reform and go back to what we had – that makes millions of people who have insurance now go back to a place of healthcare insecurity.
When people say that an insurance plan shouldn’t require maternity coverage, that raises the price that people will pay for having a kid – which makes it harder for people to choose life.
I’m not saying you (or the people who liked your comment) are heartless – I just don’t think you are connecting the dots on how policy impacts people’s decisions.
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Ex GOP, am I reading correctly, that you believe this woman to be justified in selling her child? And that sale would almost certainly be into protitution.
Desperate times call for desperate measures?
I certainly agree that economic factors drive bad behavior,but there is no situation that allows you to practice slavery.
And as for unexpected pregnancy for a woman living on the economic edge, I get what you are saying. But again, there is no situation that justifies abortion. There is Medicaid, there are private maternity homes, there is adoption, there are CPCs. Plus there are numerous types of highly effective birth control. And then there is of course chastity, which is free.
Why is the sale of girl children justified? Why is it okay to kill the inconvenient unborn? I truly cannot understand the mindset.
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Sharon –
No – you are not reading that right. I’m not saying that it is okay based on my moral foundation.
But obviously to her, given the hand that she’s been dealt, it is – and she isn’t the first ever to feel so backed against the wall with no other options, that this would be the choice. I suppose I’d be interested in what others on the board would do if you really only believed there were two options – let your spouse die or sell a child? What a horrible decision. Now I don’t know what her other options might actually be – but either she’s crazy, or in her assessment, those are her only two options.
And to me and you – no situation justifies abortion. But if you take a woman who is barely struggling to get by – and you don’t have good insurance, and your job doesn’t cover maternity, and you don’t have a support system – while our morality wouldn’t justify it, it certainly doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why women have abortions.
It might just be me – but I”m not of the opinion that many women list in their yearly goals to get pregnant and have an abortion. Yes, there are some flippant about it – but far too many are women who get pregnant and feel like the deck is stacked against them. So it gets to me a little when people yell to get rid of abortion, and in the same writings, yell to stack the deck further against these women.
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A communist paradise like China doesn’t provide health care for everyone “free”?
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They do have “free” healthcare in China however it is not equal for everyone. So much for government “provision” being the answer.
X–Millions are on insurance now that didn’t have it before? Like WHO? my premiums have gone up to the point where my husband and I can’t afford it, our plan is being canceled and the new one we’re automatically enrolled in is even MORE money and I am STILL waiting for medicaid to deny us so that I can THEN enroll in a plan on the healthcare exchange.
yup…that obamacare is BETTER than what we had before. Yup. Yup. Yup.
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How is it this couple has three children?!? All girls?!? How did they manage to escape the one-child policy and the forced abortions?
Dear God, please protect that little baby girl, and keep her safe from harm, from being sold or abandoned. And provide what this poor family needs.
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Good point X,
Hi Jen. Baby girls were sold into slavery in China, and were considered little more than slaves at birth. Everything old is new again.
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EGV,
Looks like the state of Vermont has put the kibosh to the single payer system. If a little state like this can’t manage it, how can the entire country? A very good argument for letting the states decide for themselves.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/12/18/vermont-slays-single-payer/
Also, even many of the “universal health care” systems have “two tiered”. A public system pays for one level, those with money enjoy a better level. Some would argue we are Canada’s second tier.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651375/
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Sydney
The rhetoric doesn’t match the facts.
Who? Here are the numbers – they exceed all CBO estimates – looks like total newly insured only through exchanged could top 13 million.
The law is far from perfect – but it is easily a big success at this point – I’d be interested to see a coherent argument stating anything to the contrary. People can nit pick a stat or two here – but quality ratings, cost control, enrollment figures, choice – the numbers have been great.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120634/2014-obamacare-enrollment-pace-exceed-hhs-match-cbo-estimate
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Mary –
I doubt you actually care much – but I just read a good breakdown of the Vermont system – sounds like it was doomed from the start the way the bill was put together.
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EGV,
A single small state that leans socialist couldn’t get it right but we should trust that an out of control federal government can. Whatever.
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Yes Mary – I have no doubts that it could be done.
Again – if you are actually interested in some good reading on it, let me know. My guess is you are just trying to score some cheap political points.
Regardless – I think health care reform bought us some time.
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EGV,
You have no doubts it could be done? Why am I not surprised?
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“The law is far from perfect – but it is easily a big success at this point”
Eewwh….Ex-RINO, please quit grubering all over this board.
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“I’d be interested to see a coherent argument stating anything to the contrary”
Sydney, Didn’t I just see you post that your current health insurance policy is being cancelled and that you can’t afford the higher out-of-pocket expenses for the Obamacare policy you are being forced onto? And Ex-RINO responded that you and your case against Obamacare are just a bunch of ‘rhetoric’? Only a progressive statist like Ex-RINO could have so little conscience as to treat people that way. I am sorry for what he and the rest of the Gruber’s in this world are putting you and millions of other people through and I will do everything in my power to fight with you to put you back in control of your health insurance options/choices.
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“I just read a good breakdown of the Vermont system – sounds like it was doomed from the start the way the bill was put together”
Sure Ex-RINO…..completely understandable…..let me guess…they forgot to put in a provision part where the ‘rich’ parents (parents with more than one kid) could sell their ‘extra’ children if they needed some money for their own health insurance premiums.
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I got health insurance for pretty much the first time in my adult life because of the ACA (and no it’s not Medicaid, I got the subsidies) and managed to get a surgery I have needed a long time AND get proper mental healthcare (I definitely would have committed suicide this year without it, I very nearly did even with it). The law helped me.
There were people harmed by the ACA, and there were people really, really helped. There are people who have never, ever seen a mental health provider or had a pelvic exam, or had asthma control medications instead of rescue inhalers, for example, that are now getting these things. There are people who had rotting teeth for YEARS finally getting that taken care of. There are diabetics being able to afford their insulin AND eat. That saves lives. Yes, some people are paying more and I’d like to see that worked on too, but I’m not willing to be all “oh it sucks so much that low income people can access basic healthcare now”. Y’all are so upset about your pocketbooks that you can’t see past it.
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But anyway, this thread derailed badly. That little girl should obviously not be sold, this family should be helped. A social safety net would probably help (China lacks one pretty badly) but the way human life is devalued is also a huge factor. I will pray for that kid.
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Mary –
The US has one of the largest single payer systems in the world – if you just take the amount of money the US government spends on healthcare now through Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, VA – scaling up Medicare to cover everybody wouldn’t be that difficult.
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Deluded-Lib,
I am glad you are getting health care that you were previously unable to get. What Obamacare plan do you have (Bronze, Silver or Gold) and if it is not MediCaid then how can you afford the deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses that are crushing so many others?
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Sure EGV,
Along with the corruption, waste, and fraud that comes with Medicare.
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Sure – Medicare has waste. That isn’t unique to Medicare though – insurance in general has a ton of waste and money spent that isn’t actually directed towards care.
There’s an awesome senator from MN – Al Franken – easily cruised to re-election – and he added a component to health care reform that said an insurance company had to pay out $.80 for every premium dollar. Many facilities were paying just $.60 on the dollar.
Can you imagine that? It’s like a bad charity where all the money is going to administrative overhead.
So we talk about medicare fraud and waste – and yet they have a leaner product than insurance – I mean, is there anything that medicare pays more for compared to regular insurance?
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EGV,
Oh yes Al. The guy with the rather sick and twisted rape fantasy. Tie a woman up, keep her imprisoned, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. Not just any woman either, Lesley Stahl. One must wonder what Ms. Stahl thinks of this.
How would you feel if it was your wife EGV that some guy was creating sick fantasies about? All for laughs of course.
So you acknowledge government run health care is corrupt, wasteful, and fraudulent. Thank you.
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By the definitions of ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ – I could almost guarantee you could walk behind anybody who works in a medical facility and find cases of one of the three.
Yes – Medicare has some of each.
But it is obviously less wasteful than regular insurance.
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“There are people who had rotting teeth for YEARS finally getting that taken care of.”
Deluded Lib, How can you attribute this Dental benefit improvement to the ACA? Besides getting shafted with higher premiums and deductibles due to Obamacare I have an ACA compliant policy that caps dental reimbursement at $1000 annually. And I have a single tooth that is needing over $2000 in work. I will wait for your answer so I can look into buying your policy for myself.
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ts and DLPL,
You have no idea the small children we see with rotting teeth that require surgical dentistry, mostly on the taxpayers’ dime. In many cases mom and dad can well afford I phones, I pads, face jewelry, and nice clothes, but can’t buy their kid a toothbrush, much less brush their teeth or not feed their child junk. People have their priorities.
Sorry, but “rotting teeth” can be prevented with basic oral hygiene.
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And Mary –
Society has a cost of about a $190 Billion in a year in obesity related illnesses – people have their priorities there as well.
A lot can be prevented with basic oral hygiene. My guess is though that you’ve gone to the dentists for years and years, and have loved ones that do as well. Giving people toothbrushes, a wave, and no regular dental care is bad policy.
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EGV,
But starting children out early in life with the basics of oral hygiene and restricting their sugar can give them a good start.
When you see children endure the pain and risk of surgery because mom and dad couldn’t be bothered to brush their children’s teeth or monitor their diet, its infuriating. It also means unnecessary suffering for their children.
Hygiene may be more difficult for children and adults with severe physical disabilities.
Yes there are obesity related issues.
Seems as though people need to take some personal responsibility. Everything cannot be medically treated.
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I don’t understand how Obamacare helps the poor anyway. Even if we susidize the premiums and get people on a bronze policy they still couldn’t afford the co-pays and deductibles. What am I missing?
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This gives the lie to what my Chinese colleagues try to tell me as they laugh about us having to pay for health insurance, software and movies.
They (and the left in the US) say they have “free” health care in China. Unlimited and no cost.
In the US, this woman’s husband would probably qualify for medicaid or some private charity would step forward.
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@ Ex-GOP. Medicare and Medicaid patients are the only patients in the US that are legally banned from paying cash for any treatment that Medicare/Medicaid denies. The bureaucrats making those decisions do so based on age and disability of the patient to determine cost effectiveness. Seniors are denied access to less invasive procedures that have shorter recovery times because they are more expensive.
The big lie is that the government can run healthcare more efficiently than the private sector. Look what government did to education. decades of reform and ever increasing spending yet declining results year over year with every new “reform.”
Nearly all new innovation in medicine comes from the US, and none form countries where the government controls everything.
Most states in the US have more MRI capacity than Canada or the UK.
Cancer survival rates in the US are higher than Canada and the UK.
Infant mortality numbers are harder to compare because the US counts a child that takes a breath as a live birth. Other countries don’t count any child that doesn’t live to at least 30 days.
As for the ACA “helping people” ? Give me a break. My family coverage is $24,000 a year. The payment is nearly twice my mortgage.
many more people have lost affordable insurance due to Bummer care than gained. The substantially higher deductibles are forcing people to delay seeing doctors. The death toll won’t be known until these people start dying because they could no longer afford to see the specialist they needed.
Who cares if the ACA kills thousands of adults. If it saves one child it is worth it. Isn’t that the motto of the left?
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When my wife was a teen, it was discovered she had a congenital defect that could be corrected by surgery.
Her mom had been attending a certain church for a while. The church paid for the surgery, of many thousands of dollars.
My wife has been able to be athletic for decades since.
Later in time, I became a tither – not for this reason, but because God wants us to be givers, like He is.
At this point, I have probably given this same church five times what they gave for the surgery. Who knows what my tithing has been able to accomplish.
I know what the tithing of others, years ago, has accomplished.
The mercy of the wicked is cruel.
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fishy dude
first post:
– You’ll have to provide a link to back up what you are saying on Medicare/Medicaid. These patients have all sorts of out of pocket costs – I could provide you a ton of links regarding what medicare does and doesn’t cover, and expected out of pocket costs for things it doesn’t cover – so I think you are talking about something else.
– Medical innovation – again, you’d need to back it up with facts. I do enjoy that you discuss the MRI though. First MRI scan happened in England.
– Your overview of the US medical system is a great example of quick cherry picking of numbers. So let’s actually hit some numbers:
The US pays more than anybody else in the world – that’s clear. Per capita, more than double New Zealand or the UK. The closest is Switzerland, which is still only about 60% of what we pay. From a GDP standpoint, the US spends almost 20% of the GDP on healthcare – UK, Sweeden, Australia – all under 10%. The money side continues to show up in any statistic you look at – per discharge, we are highest in the world – more than triple Germany or France, even though the average stay in the US is less than that of Germany, New Zeland, or the Swiss – so we pay more (a lot more) per hospital stay, and have shorter stay. Drugs costs more, surgery costs more – again, I can give you specific links if you care.
You try to cherry pick stats (and you’d have to dig in more – it isn’t all cancers, and I’d read up on it more before touting the stat) – but the US has worse outcomes on Diabetes than anybody else – we don’t live longer – the expected life expectancy is on the low end. It is just the simple stuff we aren’t even that good on – we are only beating Finland on deaths from injuries as a % of population – and only beating Denmark on deaths from non-communicable diseases. Again – a little research will lead you to a clear bottom line which is, we spend more than anybody in the world, by a lot, and we don’t have better outcomes. We do a great job in this country treating people once they get very sick. We do a poor job with overall health. Now, if you ran a business, and you found out that your development team or production people did a terrible job, but you had a great quality team that fixed things before they went out the door – you wouldn’t be proud of your overall operations. That is what we have in the US.
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fishy –
Second post.
I don’t know all about your healthcare plan (though I can deduce a lot) – and I’d bet money that it has very little to do with health care reform.
First off, if you are paying that much, you are almost for sure getting your coverage through an employer based family plan – and my guess is you aren’t paying it all, your employer is paying a lot. If you’ve purchases this plan on a health care exchange, – first, I”m not sure if it is possible to find a plan for that much – second, if it is, then you chose a platinum plan, and you make big bucks and didn’t quality for any subsidies. Again, the average platinum plan info I found is nowhere near that – so I think you have a plump plan through your business – and I’d bet money that the increases you have seen over the past few years are similar, if not less than they were pre health care reform.
Regardless, if your plan is from work, very little of any increases can statistically be tied to health care reform unless your previous plan was terrible and your company had to comply with new standards…and I’m guessing that isn’t the case (why would they have a bad plan, and then go for a cadillac?)
Your last few sentences are just unsupported rhetoric. The Roosevelt institute estimated that based on the number of Americans now covered, and based on a study by Harvard Medical School – a repeal of the ACA would kill 32,000 people a year. You oddly argue people are delaying care (which makes no sense because people now have coverage – why would they get specialty care without coverage, and now skip it with coverage) – while ignoring the fact that pre health care reform, tens of millions more did not have insurance and skipped both specialty and non-specialty care – so if you equate care to better outcomes (which you seem to be doing), then it is a completely illogical statement to think we’re better off in a system where more people skip care.
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EGV,
So medicare/medicaid patients have “all sorts of out of pocket costs”? How can that be? There are things the gov’t doesn’t cover? What happens to people who can’t afford out of pocket costs?
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Mary
This site will tell you everything you need to know on the out of pocket costs:
http://kff.org/health-costs/report/how-much-is-enough-out-of-pocket-spending-among-medicare-beneficiaries-a-chartbook/
Those without enough money pass on care – simple economics.
Paul Ryan’s plan would greatly increase the out of pocket costs – I know truthseeker supported that.
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EGV,
Thank you for the source. So indeed those who can afford to pay more will get more services provided and better care than those who cannot afford to pay out of pocket. “Simple economics”.
I thought gov’t run universal healthcare was supposed to remedy the problem of people not getting needed health care and make it equal and fair for us all. So you agree this is not the case at all?
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Hi ts, 2:28am
EGV has made the case that gov’t run health care(Medicaid/Medicare) doesn’t always help the poor, or at least not fairly and equally. It sure helps if the poor and elderly can cough up some extra funds. If they can’t, well apparently they are SOL.
Why would Obamacare be any different?
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Mary –
No – I don’t agree with that assessment because of the word “need”. There is a big difference in getting anything a person asks for vs. getting what is needed.
For instance, cosmetic surgery is not covered by medicare. Acupuncture is not covered by medicare. So somebody getting acupuncture will pay out of pocket. I don’t have an issue with that.
Also, like most other plans, medicare has deductibles, copayments – etc… – this has less to do with universal care or government run health care and more about the economics of the policy and how politicians have shaped it. They certainly could do a version with no out of pocket costs – taxpayers would just pay more.
Make sense?
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EGV,
Really? So who determines what is needed and what is just “asked” for?
Cosmetic surgery not being covered is no surprise, insurance doesn’t cover it either unless there’s a medical need such as a deformity, accident, or burns. Acupuncture as well. Heck no one gets paid to get massages either and many people swear to their therapeutic value. This isn’t what I’m talking about and you know it.
EGV, I’m not arguing with you. I agree gov’t run health care is a two tiered boondoggle, and that’s a charitable assessment, that the taxpayers foot the bill for, corruption and fraud is part of the bill.
If you can pay more you get services others do not. Thank you for acknowledging that.
Make sense? Absolutely!
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Mary –
I believe politicians have largely shaped medicare – not exactly sure who has fully scoped what is and isn’t paid for.
I would say that for seniors, medicare is a way better choice than going the route of private insurance (and getting rid of medicare).
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Yes Mary,
Ex-RINO seems to substantiate my case that gov’t run health care(Obamacare, Medicaid/Medicare) doesn’t always help the poor, or at least not fairly and equally. It sure helps if the poor and elderly can cough up some extra funds for ‘uncovered expenses. If they can’t, well apparently they are SOL. Obamacare is a scam to tax and fine a large portion of the population and to funnel tax dollars to the health insurance industry. Even the Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber admitted it. This will be the first year that people will start getting fined by the IRS and over the next few years as more and more penalties and provisions kick in you will seemore DemocRATs will peel away from supporting it or get tossed out of office and it will be repealed completely.
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So, anyway, did everyone have a great Christmas?
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Yes we did JDC, thank you for asking.
A very Merry holiday season and happy new year to you and all on this blog.
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Glad to hear it, Mary.
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year JDC
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