okay the topic of the conversation is national health insurance and the pros and cons and do i do we think that the government should finance it what is your opinion
i say yes
you say yes
yes mother lives in Florida and there are in her subdivision there are fifty percent Canadians who won't give up their Canadian citizenship because of the health insurance
i have heard someone else uh say that uh the Canadian health insurance is absolutely excellent
it's wonderful
and one of the ways that they're financing it is they have an exorbitant tax on their cigarettes
oh well
this is
evidently evidently this is one of the ways that they're paying for the program plus discouraging the people to quit smoking so they don't have to pay out as many uh benefits on like lung cancer and things like this
well even if that's so you know really when you look at it they have full coverage they have HMO which you know after you get used to it it's not too bad
and uh everything is covered
yeah if
and we have so many people in the United States that we spend well in my family alone we spent four thousand dollars in July on medical bills
oh my word Lynn
insurance didn't cover a penny yeah
that's horrible
yes it is horrible
well we're fortunate in that we so far knock on wood most of us have been relatively real healthy so we don't have a lot of medical bills
yeah but if
uh if you're healthy it's fine but i had two kids in the hospital in July
yeah but what worries me is the fact that
i don't like the government telling me who i can see and who i can't see
yeah but you know Richardson School District has the HMO and ninety percent of the doctors you would choose are on that list
um-hum
are they
yeah
well i know that Greg uh James had it
McCullum is
i beg your pardon
McCullum is
yeah yeah i know that when James was with Continental Steel
McCullum was part of that and and that's good but i also heard for instance like uh
a friend's daughter was on it through Texas Instruments and she was on that Kaiser Permanent
uh-huh
and they had screwed up her appointment and when she went in she had to take whichever doctor was available
and they she would have had to wait like two months to get the doctor she wanted
well but that's
but then again i guess you can even do that in McCullum's
that's a screw up in an appointment you know i'm thinking going back to the days when i was pregnant
um-hum
and i had two doctors
and one was my favorite personality wise
uh-huh
but when i delivered Ronnie he was not on call the other guy delivered him
um-hum
well that's true and that still goes on
you know and that and you know if um i go to Townsend he's got a new partner
um-hum
i go to both of them now
you know i have no choice
right
you know because when i want to go if Doctor Howe or whatever his name is is on duty i go to him
well you know it uh
how do you think we're going to pay for it
more and more taxes
well no we need to cut some of our spendings
cut some of the fat off the top
and whittle it down to the rest of us
i know that it's getting to the point that the insurance doesn't pay that much on catastrophic illnesses
no
they don't pay anything on uh implants or transplants
no
and you know people are needing these and the average person can't afford you know a heart or a kidney
on just their own
yeah
but you known Ronnie in Austin
went to a program and went to a social worker
uh-huh
and at the same token there is something because he can get his pills for two dollars when i'm paying fifteen on my medical insurance
good grief
and he can get free medical care but he has to go to the city hospital instead of seeing David
um-hum
and so again you know we went through it Ronnie's home tonight and we talked about it and said you know is it worth it yeah you know he pays forty five dollars a month for his prescriptions where he could pay six dollars
hum
um-hum um-hum
so there are programs you know if you get on Medicare or Medicaid or one of those
that's very true
well i know they have the Medicaid you know for those that have trouble and i know that like we have the uh prescription cards which that's helped bunches
yeah
and wonder if the insurance companies are fighting the national health or wonder if they're wanting it
that's what i read
that they are wanting
