Thousands flood free medical clinic in Los Angeles

[slipslidingaway]

Source: CBS News

"LOS ANGELES -- A charity called Your Best Pathway to Health set up shop in downtown Los Angeles this week, providing free medical and dental care. The response has been overwhelming.

People lined up by the thousands for chance to see a doctor, dentist, or optometrist -- all medical volunteers, offering their services for free.


......When Dr. Lewis founded the traveling, free clinic in 2014, he anticipated a different clientele.

"I expected to see a lot more homeless people and people with no insurance at all, and to find out that the majority had insurance but couldn't afford their co-payment or deductible, that was surprising," Lewis said..."



Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/free-medical-clinic-in-los-angeles-draws-thousands/

[ForgoTheConsequence]

1. Impossible the ACA fixed all of this.

And if you disagree ivory tower Hillary supporters are going to call you an Obama hater.

[Jitter65]

2. No one ever said or promised that the ACA would cover or solve all our healthcare problems.

Tarnishing the "good" going after the "perfect."

[ForgoTheConsequence]

5. We should always be going after the perfect.

The "good" isn't good enough for millions of people who can't see a doctor.

[McCamy Taylor]

8. The main "good" about a bronze plan is the hospital gets paid for your catastrophic illness.

The high deductible makes it worthless as a prevention plan. And the insurers are only paying their sales people a commission to sell the bronze plans.

The ACA is great for those in the upper-middle and upper class with pre-existing conditions who get a silver or gold plan. If the plan was to get their votes, the Democrats scored big. The ACA is worthless for those who sign up for bronze. It is worthless for the working poor who make too much for Medicaid.

[LibDemAlways]

10. The Covered California Silver Plan is a joke, too.

A relative with that worthless POS plan landed in the emergency room and ended up with a $5000 out of pocket bill for an 8 hour stay. This on top of a $600 monthly premium. It's criminal that this is allowed to be called "Affordable." For people with a shitload of money, sure. For the ordinary person who makes a couple of dollars more than would qualify him for a subsidy, not so much.

[C Moon]

11. Wow. That's friggin' scary!

[pablo_marmol]

36. The only reason that the ACA is affordable to me........

............is because my car is payed off and I've re-financed down to a very low mortgage. I can see why so many people have decided to pass.

My monthly premium is $275, and I'm paying $320 for PT for a particularly stubborn bout of plantar fasciitis. (sp?) I had to delay this treatment because I was seeing the doc quite a bit for a while for pneumonia-related issues.

[PersonNumber503602]

43. Did you have insurance pre-ACA?

Despite the many flaws with the ACA, I fear returning to what we had before. In which many who had to pay for insurance on the private market by themselves ended up with even more useless plans that might have cost a little less, but didn't offer nearly as many protections. I had one of those and my insurance refused to cover anything related to a preexisting condition I had, and they looked for any reason to not cover anything else that could possibly be related to that.

But even with the ACA, paying $3xx/month for a $5,000 deductible plan that many doctors won't take is pretty messed up. I don't know if it's everywhere, but I've noticed a lot of doctors won't take a lot of plans from the exchanges. I don't know if this due to incompetence, sabotage, or what, but it's a problem. I hope we either get single payer or they at the very least revive the public option.

[pablo_marmol]

45. I did.

The usual (roughly) 50/50 split with my employer. Same maximum out-of-pocket I currently have with lower co-pays. I still consider myself lucky, as the ACA came along right after I had to quit that job and start a job without benefits. Pre-existing conditions might preclude me from getting insurance without the ACA........so I am generally grateful.

I hope we either get single payer or they at the very least revive the public option.

Indeed!

[mrmpa]

32. I've been saying this...........

ever since the ACA was rolled out. Let's say you work for minimum wage & full time (2080 hours a year). Your income is about $15,000 a year before taxes. If you buy a policy at $300 a month ($3600 for the year) and your deductible is $3000 for the year, plus you have copays. You have to pay $6600 a year before the policy pays for anything, that's near half of your net pay. How the hell can you pay for food, housing, etc. YOU CAN'T.

I have insurance (Medicaid) for the first time in 6 years. I've had a cataract for 3 years, that only with Medicaid was I able to have it removed two weeks ago.

I've been a proponent of a one payer system since forever & that is the only system that will fix this broken system.

[C Moon]

37. Crazy! I'd always thought it was more reasonable than that. Ouch.

[PersonNumber503602]

44. Most people making minimum wage would qualify for subsidies, so they wouldn't be paying the full

$300/mo. Also, I believe they would qualify for the silver cost-sharing (or whatever they are called), and those all seem to have much lower deductibles and max-out-of-pockets. We're talking sub-$1,000 ranges. From what I've seen, the people who get hurt the most are those who either only qualify for a low subsidy or no subsidy at all. So they might be making $40k/yr, but they are paying the full $350/mo for a plan that has a $6k deductible and $12k/yr max-out-of-pocket. They are basically making a car payment for insurance that is mostly useless unless they have a catastrophic medical issue. So they are paying the premium and whatever their normal doctor visits would be since the "cheaper" plans don't pay anything until the deductible is met.

I fell into the latter category of people who didn't get subsidies, but still struggled to make the insurance payments. I'm still glad for we got the protections that ACA offers though.

[Scootaloo]

14. Good can always be improved

I'm puzzled why so many so-called Democrats are so up in arms against even trying to improve things.

[Igel]

19. Because "improve" comes in a few different forms.

One is to allow small changes (or large changes) to be made when they're possible, without a life-or-death struggle.

The other is to disallow small changes to be made when they're possible because we only accept the large changes--for many, preferably with a life-or-death struggle.



It's known as letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Extreme forms of Marxism had the same view--don't partially alleviate the workers' plight, because we'll only have revolution when they finally have had enough, so the worse it gets the better in the long run. Meh.

Others are just in it for the struggle and victory. If not this, then they'll find something else to warriorize.


At the same time, criticism of the ACA is sometimes taken to be criticism of (a) the (D) party, (b) Obama, (c) others supporting the ACA. If it's criticism of Obama, that's often taken as prima facie evidence of outrage-inducing, superiority-coddling racism, simply because you're criticizing something Obama promoted and because Obama's black. "Others supporting the ACA" is currently often taken to mean "Hillary Clinton". In other words, lack of support for the ACA is criticism of "us and our own," and how dare anybody criticize me?

That's American political discourse in a nutshell.

[Scootaloo]

22. Improvement is improvement

The trouble is that so many so-called Democrats really seem to believe that "good enough" is all that we should ever strive for. Seeking ANY amount of improvement is unimaginable, borderline evil, and denounced as "right wing" (ironic, as their position is the conservative one)

[99th_Monkey]

15. There is very little "good" about private healthcare insurance, period.

which is what the ACA consists of ... a Republican brainchild, stolen from he likes of Mitt Romney...

My own health insurance costs have done nothing but gone up, up, up under the ACA.

We need single-payer, nothing less. No fake substitutes please.

[Dont call me Shirley]

28. Try getting sick with no or substandard health insurance.

[rhett o rick]

30. They did promise that it would be a first step. They forgot to tell us that there would be no

second step.

[SusanLarson]

31. Tarnishing the good. LOL.

It's not good at all, anyone who thinks it is is either delusional, or lying to themselves.

For-profit insurance company middle men.
Denial of needed care to increase profits.
It doesn't control or prevent unjustified price increases.
No control of co-pays and outlandish deductibles.
No control of outlandish drug prices.

But people with preexisting conditions can't be denied coverage so it's all "Good" right?

Let me guess in your situation it is case of I got mine, so screw everyone else.

[840high]

3. I read recently that

premiuns will go up next year.

[shanti]

27. awesome

right in time for the next year's COLA, effectively wiping it out. same thing happened the year after the ACA went into affect.

[slipslidingaway]

4. As we know insurance does not equal care when people cannot afford the deductibles. :( nt

[ForgoTheConsequence]

6. Yep, another fact lost on wealthy "liberals".

They seem so confused when you bring it up. "Well why can't they just pay the $5,000 on their credit card like the rest of us?"

[slipslidingaway]

7. Yes, everyone should have a credit card and one with a high credit limit, or we could opt for a not

for profit HC system.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

9. We could.

But then you would be called the "fringe left" or a "socialist" or an "Obama hater" or called out for being "not pragmatic". We need to settle for millions not receiving health care because it's the pragmatic choice.


Unfortunately these statements seem to be shared by the majority of the Democratic party. Pulling the lever for Hillary might as well have been pulling a lever labeled "fuck the poor".

[Hestia]

24. $5k is so two years ago...it's now gone up to $8.5k deducible per year for the family plan

and this is even after we changed to an Advantage/POS Plan.

[mrmpa]

33. Does POS mean.......

Point of Service or Piece of Shit....

[Hestia]

46. LOL. Point of Service but Piece of Shit is apt also ;)

[Little Tich]

12. I wish there was a way to double rec this OP.

Free medical care is the best thing since sliced bread.

[leftcoastmountains]

13. So much for our great health care system.

[Loudestlib]

16. For one of my epidemiology classes I looked at the survival rate of black women with breast cancer.

Compared to other women, I found that black women were dying at a much higher rate. The one anomaly were the black women living in Massachusetts starting around 2007. Their death rates were normalized to the average rate for non-black women. This corresponded directly with the passage of Massachusetts health care reform law. The number of medical bankruptcies seemed to decline as well (limited data at the time.)

The affordable care act fixed a lot of things but it still left a lot people uninsured and unable to afford healthcare. Insurance companies know how to game the ACA and they'll only get better at. So, basically our current health care system lets people die and makes them bankrupt and it's going to get worse. Increment change means that while we slowly progress, people will die and more people will go bankrupt.

[LittleGirl]

17. It's so hard

to pay for medical anymore. I need to get a bridge replaced (dentist) and the previous estimates have been 10 or 12 or 13k to replace it.
That's 10+ thousand dollars.

[FlaGranny]

20. Dental care

is absolutely the worst for the poor and the middle class in the US. Medical care, as a whole, is so expensive it is out of reach for many still. Once you pay hundreds of dollars a month for insurance, nothing is left over for co-pays. Even a Medicare Advantage plan requires co-pays that many older people cannot afford, although it is certainly a better option than private insurance for those not old enough for Medicare. Often we elderly have to settle for an HMO which restricts which physicians can be seen, makes them fight on the phone for hours to get referrals, and refuses to pay for the latest and best technologies. The state of medical care in this country is pathetic for the non wealthy. A few years ago I spent $8000 on my teeth (dentist suggested $18,000 worth of work), and $5000 on cataract surgery. I'm still paying for those. Now I need both knees replaced. My plan is probably to put the co-pays on a credit card and file bankruptcy at some point. I'm living on Social Security alone and there is no way I'll ever be able to pay them.

I was so pissed at Obama when he didn't even bring single payer health care to the table. Clinton is also not going to even try.

[LittleGirl]

21. agree

completely. I'm pissed that single payer was off the table which is why I've supported Bernie for years. He has his mind set on providing this healthcare and dental care through our taxes which is what we need like the rest of the civilized countries. Thanks for your post. Sorry to hear about your knees and that bankruptcy is an option for someone living on SS. It's messed up. Hugs.

[FlaGranny]

25. Doesn't look good

For a single payer plan in the near future the way things are going. People have been convinced they will be paying more for everyone to be covered. The propaganda has been successful and it's the lower middle class that suffers most, making too much for help, but not enough to pay for the care they need

[Earth_First]

29. I completely understand you...

I too, have a host of dental issues that will eventually cost me between 10-15K to have rectified.

The problem is, I cannot afford it currently; so the issues go unattended and become even more complicated.

Some nights it keeps me awake, and in social situations; I avoid conversation as a result of my dental issues.

Some day we will get this mess sorted out so we will all have access to affordable health care.

Good luck, LG...I feel your pain!

[ErikJ]

18. Te ACA is to complex and complicated to be affordable.

It sucks. After all it was a Republcan health care alternative keeping the P in Profit for the health insurance companies.

[MisterP]

23. wait, Kevin Drum said unemployment was at 5%, Americans average $70K,

and everyone has healthcare now!

[Uncle Joe]

26. This wouldn't happen under Medicare For All, instead we're as a third world nation when

it comes to healthcare for our people.

Thanks for the thread, slipslidingaway.

[suffragette]

39. Exactly so, Joe.

Sadly, this is still all too true.

[Equinox Moon]

34. Bernie

Bernie's platform --- Wow, is it needed!

[Iwillnevergiveup]

35. That venue

would have been an excellent place to register voters! God bless the volunteer medics...maybe a few L.A. peeps will sleep better tonight.

K&R

[Liberal_in_LA]

38. Like that remote area medical

[slipslidingaway]

40. Thanks for replies! But there is still so much more to do, two interesting videos on the issue ...

the first is a video on CNBC with the current CEO of Aetna. We have heard that of UnitedHealth Care will no longer participate in the ACA exchanges, but he is taking a much longer view.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/19/investing/unitedhealthcare-obamacare-exchanges-aca/

You have to watch the video, the text in the article is missing, but he mentions the idea of capital deployment, he was interviewed on CNBC and spoke of the acquisition costs of members. He realized that they are being handed subscribers because of the ACA, forced members so to speak, and mentions the numbers. But he wants changes, more younger subscribers to help defray costs. IMHO UnitedHealth Care is taking a short term view with their losses and he is taking a longer view. Essentially insurance companies are being handed customers on a silver platter, but they might not bear fruit immediately.

In the second interview you will see he has some personal connections to health care, his own story and that of his son and what he has done within the company.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/28/aetna-ceo-wants-these-changes-to-obamacare.html

Mark Bertolini's Personal Mission To Redefine Healthcare

[PasadenaTrudy]

41. Housing takes up everyone's paycheck

here. It's ridiculous.

[slipslidingaway]

42. Hard to build and sustain a great nation when many are fighting for a roof and basic care. nt