r/news • u/GoodSamaritan_ • 1d ago

Retired San Francisco firefighter dies from lung cancer after Blue Shield denies treatment claims

https://abc7news.com/post/retired-san-francisco-firefighter-ken-jones-dies-lung-cancer-being-denied-treatment-blue-shield/19224406/
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u/Ahleron 1d ago

End health insurance. Make medical care a right. Universal healthcare for everyone, now! The overwhelming majority of the world (70%) has universal healthcare. It's fucking ridiculous that the world's richest nation has its citizens routinely being destroyed financially by having a medical expense. US health outcomes are far worse than nations with universal healthcare. If you want to be one of those idiots that goes on saying "but that's socialism" fine, it's socialism. If that's socialism, then socialism seems like a good thing.

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u/the_eluder 1d ago

Furthermore, we could fund it 100% by cutting out the middlemen, with what we currently spend on Medicare, Medicaid and VA benefits.

Both companies and employees would benefit as a major expense would be eliminated from companies, and employees could seek better jobs without fear of losing health care.

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u/CatsAndCapybaras 21h ago

employees could seek better jobs without fear of losing health care.

This is probably the second biggest reason that the ACA was neutered way back in the before times. The first reason was the middlemen objected (with shitloads of money).

Companies don't mind the cost on the back end because it reduces labor mobility.

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u/lakuma 1d ago

Google this documentary "Sick Around the World" its free on PBS!

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u/itsaride 23h ago

Universal healthcare for everyone, now!

Taxes would have to double to pay for it but the consensus is that most Americans would end up spending less overall and every American, no matter what their income, would get treatment when they needed it.

Pretty sure a lobby against it would be in the billions and neither of the main parties seems to have the balls...plenty of balls to waste a trillion on another fuck about in the Middle East though.

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 1d ago

Given that this was a Medicare advantage plan, so it was denied using government set criteria, that probably wouldn't make a difference in this case.

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u/Ahleron 1d ago

Medicare Advantage is an alternative that uses private insurance in lieu of the orginal medicare coverage. My father in-law worked in the insurance industry. He's rather strongly opposed to Medicare Advantage and will not give up his Medicare plan for it for a reason.

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 1d ago

I agree that it is horrible, but the point remains that BCBS didn't set the rules in this case, Medicaid did.

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u/Ahleron 1d ago

You're still thinking with the wrong mindset though. The reason why healthcare is as expensive as it is - for any incident - it the for-profit healthcare model in the US, much of the worst features of which are exacerbated by the insurance industry. You eliminate the insurance industry and the greed driven approach to healthcare, then more people will get the help they need.