I'll try to find the notes that have the source of those figures. I'm embarrassed to say that my notes look something like my old high school locker or the aftermath of a hurricane.

DAnneMarc: What I meant by "routine" is that after you reach a certain age, the doctors recommend getting a "routine" colonoscopy every 10 years, or 5 years if they have had to remove a polyp. And you said that you had to make your appointment 5 years ago. We live in different times now. With the increased number of people in the system...they are swamped with people trying to make appointments. And it wasn't the "insurance company" he was trying to contact..it was the colonoscopy doctor's office. And before that it was the primary care doctor's office. Problems waiting on the line for about an hour before they could get through to make an appointment. As for having the primary care doctor's office make the appointment for him...I don't know. I'll have to ask him the next time I call him or when he calls me.

Quote DAnneMarc:When I think how many polyps We the People paid to have removed from the #1 a$$hole in the country, Ronald Wilson (666) Reagan's bum hole I want to scream. The last one I had hit me for over $300 out-of-pocket cost.

Quick! Blue Light Special..at Isle 13..get your Walmart colonoscopy now while the prices are still affordable! ;-}

Quote DAnneMarc: Perhaps I'm just frustrated that I had any out-of-pocket expense at all for a colonoscopy. If you had one my friend, don't you agree that you should have been paid for it? Perhaps at least been given a nice candle lit dinner with a little dancing before it all?Whatever happened to tradition?

Freemasons, Illuminati, ChemTrails, HAARP, Cabalism, Nephilim, Aliens, Mayan prophecy, Demons, Satanic worship, Mark of the Beast, is Obama a Clone?...all kinds of conspiracy theories are on that FreemanTV web site.

I don't think the Thom Hartmann show is that kind of a show. There are plenty of other media shows that deal with those kinds of topics. Even though Thom may occasionally joke about the Lizard People or other way out subjects (mostly because they have been mentioned in the news relating to some politician, perhaps), I don't think it is his main interest. And taking any of these way-out subjects seriously would tend to detract from his audience's attention or willingness to hear such things.

I have read many UFO books and conspiracy theories of various nature (many of the above) and I can say that there is, sometimes, a little bit of truth connected to some of them. But, those who come up with many of these conspiracy theories and sell them to the public (selling lots of books and making money by selling DVDs and getting people to pay them for the lectures they give and UFO or Conspiracy conferences) do mix a few truths in with a lot of unsubstantiated BS.

These "stories" may be fun for some people but can drive other people nuts...even to the extent they murder their children in exorcisms. The Jim Jones people found themselves either willingly, or at the end of a gun pointed at their backs, to drink the poison-laced cool-aid. The Rajneeshi people gave up their life's savings to join that group. The Heaven's Gate group let Applewhite talk them into committing suicide. David Koresh lead the Branch Davidians into a situation that resulted in all of their deaths. And it goes on and on as it has in the past...people get hooked into all of this nonsense and they end up suffering for it. Even worse, their children or other relatives, or even other people end up suffering from the beliefs of people who got caught up in this nonsense.

Not all conspiracy theories are untrue, of course. There are real conspiracies and there are real theories. And real theories of conspiracies. But some of them go pretty far out into the realm of unbelievability.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/exorcism-killers-part-demon-assass...

http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2014/03/syracuse-man-indicted-i...

And here is a list of people, many children, who have died from exorcisms.
http://whatstheharm.net/exorcisms.html

Kend -- Of course, to you everything the govt touches seems to be a disaster. To me, everything a monopoly (AKA an American corp) touches seems to be a disaster e.g. cancer alleys, GM killing people for a 57 cent part, billion dollar elections etc. With regards to medical, our totally socialized VA Hospitals have the best care with regards to outcomes. They also cost 1/4 what our private hospitals cost. The VA hospitals used to be used to show how terrible governtment run medicine was.

Palin, here is the problem. My mom about a year ago found out she had lung cancer. Because she had a good doctor NOT money she was bumped up to the front of the line and received quicker care. As the article said here in Alberta she would have waited approx 85 days to see a specialist And probaly died. Of course I would have sent south to get help sooner if this didn't happen. It's who you know here.

In Canada you can use your money to gamble, smoke, drink, by drugs but you can't buy health care. Because you might go ahead of someone else Without the means. it is a very heated debate that has been going on for ever. They now let you buy private surgeries like knee, hip, shoulder because the wait times where over a year in some cases. Let me be clear this is only available in none life threating health problems.

what we both need is something in between what we both have. One of our biggest problems is how uneffecient it it ran. It seems everything the government touches is a disaster.

Thanks for reading it. It seems we are more concerned about whether gays should get married, or pipelines then our health.

For the record I am for both.

Quote DAnneMarc:Starting a year or so ago we started getting confusing reports--not invoices--through them as well. They would list charges for a visit, the co-pay, and then some gibberish about the balance that they refused to pay for some reason or another. They then stated that this was not a bill and the provider would bill me separately.

That sounds more like what my friend told me. Lots of gibberish about what the provider charged and what the insurance covered and what was the responsibility of the patient. The copays that he actually made was double what the paperwork said he paid. And it looked like the patient was going to owe big bucks...but the actual bill was only for $10. Weird! But he is sure happy that it was only $10. And that the patient had something like 30 days to pay or the amount would go up periodically, every 30 days...or something like that.

My friend mentioned that he needed routine colonoscopy. And I think he said that the doctor left making the appointment up to him (the patient)...so now he is trying to get in touch with them but can't get through.

I read an article that the colonoscopy doctors are all ticked off with the insurance companies because they are not paying what the doctors want. And they are being swamped with patients right now. I also found a list of the average cost of a colonoscopy from Blue Shield of California cost averages $2750..but that they do anywhere between 0-500 colonoscopies a year...but some of the others do a lot more per year...and a couple of others go up to about $7000 or $8000. Of course, that is the average cost...if they find a polyp they have to remove..they may charge more. And so my friend, who is about to get on medicare in a few months may just wait till he gets on medicare because his cost would be about 20% of the bill verses the 30% of his current Blue Shield costs. Only about $250-$300 savings. That's a lot of Pabst and Mac as I think Dowdotica might have said. But my friend may eat Macaroni but I know he doesn't drink beer.

Kend: Thanks for the link to that article. You did it right! I always click on my own links just to check to see if they work ok.

I don't think I agree with the premise, as expressed in that article, that more serious, perhaps more life threatening diseases should not be bumped up to the head of the waiting line. Obviously, more life-threatening cases should be bumped up to the head of the line or more people will needlessly die. That article seems to be making the case for those richer and willing to pay more should take precedence over those who are less fortunate.

Those Canadians who have gone down to Florida for those operations on their Thyroids only had to pay $11,000? There are many other operations that would cost way more than that here in the US. Some USians even go on medical vacations to Mexico or even India in order to avoid paying the exorbitant costs of operations here. Those operations are far cheaper over there than over here.

I get it that when you increase the number of people in the system, all competing for medical needs, it is going to slow things down quite a bit. We're all just going to have to live with that. It really is better to have a slow system than no system of health care at all. I empathize with the problems my friends in California are having. And I may, one day, feel that I need medical attention myself and will be frustrated at the clogged up system. I would really hate it though if I had a life threatening problem that needed urgent medical care but had to wait my turn in line for somebody to have his sore finger looked at. I think most of what is clogging up the system right now is that so many people have not had medical care in such a long time...they are rushing in to get it.

One thing that article didn't say was that a lot of USians are going to either Mexico or Canada to get cheaper medicines. And I'd bet that there are a lot of Canadians who can't even afford to go down to Florida to pay $11,000 for such an operation...they have to stay in Canada and wait. Rich people can usually always get what they want but poorer people have to get what they can within the system. It's pretty selfish of them to think they deserve medicare over less fortunate people.

Quote Palindromedary:I have friends in California who signed up for Covered California and chose Blue Shield of California. They tell me that they just got some very confusing invoices from them for the couple of times they went in to the doctors.

Palindromedary ~ I can identify with that. Although we live in California our insurance for many years up to 2014 was with Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Starting a year or so ago we started getting confusing reports--not invoices--through them as well. They would list charges for a visit, the co-pay, and then some gibberish about the balance that they refused to pay for some reason or another. They then stated that this was not a bill and the provider would bill me separately. Some of these reports were outrageous. Yet, to date, only one of them was followed up by a bill. To tell you the truth, I don't get it either. However, If some of those reports ended up with bills I would certainly raise hell.

As far as wait times are concerned to see specialists, I have no idea what situation your friends in California have, however, in my experience any time I've needed a specialist my doctor wrote a referral so I could make an appointment. When I got in the office--sometimes you can do this online--I had to show my insurance card and fill out some paper work. The office of the specialist always contacted the insurance company for me and let me know if there are any out-of-pocket issues involved before I saw the Doctor. In some cases--like my recent Colonoscopy--the out of pocket had to be paid, by me, before services were provided. I have never had to contact my insurance company myself except when there was an error with my insurance information and the claim bounced back into my mail box. All it takes is a typo in your insurance ID number or an incorrect billing address. That only happened twice that I can recall. I don't remember any substantial wait time or problems correcting such issues. Maybe Blue Shield of California is a little bit more difficult. How ironic considering the problems befall California citizens? Do your friends have a personal or family Doctor to make the referral; or, are they contacting specialists themselves? That might be their problem.

Loren Bliss -- I think the picture you are painting is correct. The only disagreement I have is that the colors are too vivid. Since I have no writing skills, please do not laugh at my attempt at poetic words. The way I look at what you are saying is there is a constant battle between the 99% and the 1%. The 1% is certainly winning now. Based on the Powell memo described in Thom's "Crash of 2016", it seems that the 99% may have been winning after WWII. They were winning so much that it scared the 1%. Out of that fear, Lewis Powell created his CONFIDENTIAL memo.

I also I think it would have been a significant win for the 99% if they could get the Employee Free Choice Act passed. One more Democratic vote in the senate and it would have become law. That is why I say vote for Democrats.

Please explain reality!

I have friends in California who signed up for Covered California and chose Blue Shield of California. They tell me that they just got some very confusing invoices from them for the couple of times they went in to the doctors. They paid their co-pays and now their invoices claim that they only paid half of what they actually paid. I'm just wondering if there isn't a bit of deliberate confusion-making here on the part of Blue Shield or the insurance companies.

They also told me that it is very difficult to even get through to Blue Shield on the phone to even make an appointment...you have to wait for an hour or so sometimes listening to that recorded message saying they are very busy. And if you need to see a specialist, after the doctor's referral, the same thing...wait listening to recordings and then you can't get an appointment for over a month or two.

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So true, 10-K, so true... and so well stated. - AIW