If people in this country would treat their health insurance policies like the contracts they are and actually READ them, they might be surprised what types of care are not covered (generally) by said policies. It is very, very rare for a health insurance policy to cover custodial care. If you want coverage for custodial care, buy a long term care policy. I do feel sorry for this woman and her situation, but if custodial care is not a covered event listed in the policy, the burden does not belong to the insurance company.

It is time for all of us, as a nation, to take some responsiblity for ourselves and no longer assume that compensating us for our stupidity/irresponsibility/fai­lures is the government's obligation. That also applies to you homeowners who purchased homes you couldn't afford, the auto manufactuers who build cars that no one wants to drive, investors who were stupid enough to believe Madoff and Stanford's high yield investment claims, etc, etc.

No more handouts. (And for those of you who will read this and cry 'selfish Republican,' I am a registered Democrat and I voted for Obama.)

The woman in question didn't want custodial care. She wanted some assistance with home care -- principally with feeding and speech issues, though it seems pretty clear she could use the consulting help of a good neurologist.

You idiots (regardless of party, you are idiots, and regardless of your claimed vote in the last election, you are an idiot) think this is all about you and your private narcissistic solutions to social problems. It's not. We need social solutions to social problems. Grow the fuck up.

Your lack of any intelligence is mind boggling; your use of profanity shows a great level of immaturity. Home care is custodial care - it is the care required when you cannot perform at least one of your six daily functions (feeding yourself, dressing yourself, bathing yourself, etc.). Long Term Care policies pay for home care and the GOVERNMENT allows the benefits to be paid out TAX FREE. Health insurance policies do not pay for custodial care, either in the home or a facility. Medicare (a government program) only pays for 100 days of custodial care per lifetime and it never pays 100%. Medicaid (a state and federal governement program) will pay for custodial care, but Medicaid is a welfare program and you must be indigent to qualify. This man's brain damage is not a social problem.

I am pro healthcare reform, but it shouldn't be run by the government. Let's review all of the government-run programs (both state and federal) that are really utter failures: Social Security (out of money, nearly impossible to get a claim paid), FEMA, the public school system, the VA hospitals, Homeland Security/TSA, Fannie and Freddie, Medicaid (out of money), etc. I can't imagine the level of frustration that will arise the first time a citizen of this country or an attending physician tries to file a claim with the government-run health program. Just ask the people of New Orleans how their flood insurance and FEMA claims are being handled...

Now please go back to your pot smoking, unemployed, living in your mother's basement exisitence and do some research on health insurance before you comment further. You are probably stealing the internet you are using now anyway. People like you, always looking for a handout.

She wanted help with learning how to feed him. Thing is, Medicare covers this 100% for recipients under Home Health. Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Medical Social Work, Skilled Nursing, Home Health Aide for bathing, Registered Dietician, on an intermittent basis. It's the rest of us who are screwed.

NOinHOU,

Of all the Republican rhetoric that really frustrates me is the one that government can't do anything right. It is a stereotype that is as true as tne one that says that Native Americans are barbarians or theone about, well.

The government, as far as I'm concerned does A LOT OF THINGS VERY WELL. It gave me, a poor Midwesterner, an education, and helped me pay for college. What would the alternative be if there had been no public education option: I guarantee you that I'd be a poor, uneducated Midwesterner, forced to work the fields for some lucky factory farmer's kid who had the privilege of an education. And I'll also guarantee you that this country would resemble third-world countries' economic structures even more than it already does: We'd be reverted back to the 1700s when the wealthy got educated and the poor worked for pennies under the wealthy.

How about roads: I can drive anywhere in this country. I can drive from coast to coast, Canada to Mexico and everywhere in between. I can drive into the mountains at a fairly high pace and without a strong threat of an accident. What would my life be like without this public roadsoption? Frankly, I can't imagine. I suppose I'd have to get permission (most likely, by paying for it) from some wealthy landowner to use his road.

Public lands: My wife and I went camping at Mt. Rainier Park a few weeks ago. We found a campsite near a creek and beneath a stand of old-growth firs and ponderosas. It was a beautiful camp site. Guess how much it cost: $15. That's right: $15. Go to a privately run KOA, and you'll get a dusty campsite in some field for $40. And you know what private enterprise would have done with Yosemite, Yellowstone, Mount Rainier, etc? Take a look at what it wants to do with ANWR and I think you'll have your answer.

Mail: Say what you want about the U.S.P.S., but I'll bet when you send a letter or a check, you trust your contents to the government. Why? Because they'll deliver 3,000 miles in a week for 42 cents.

Military: If you're like a lot of the Republicans I know and love, you, well, you love the military. I guess I don't need to demonstrate the benefits of the military. But I'll say this: without this government-run program, we'd all be speaking German-Korean-Japanese-Russian­-Iraqi-Afghani-Commie. Seriously, how do you guys say the government can't do anything right and be so pro-military? And, at the same time, you despise the mainstream media, America's symbol of free-enterprise. How do you mesh the two? Really, I want to know.

Did you ever stop to think that the reason your hatred and skepticism of government is fed and maintained by the media which you loathe. And your devotion to the free-market is fed and maintained by the lack of media? Seriously: The media exists to report on the government, which, has an obligation to report back to the people who elected it. Private enterprise is under no similar requirement. They can merge, change policies, switch CEOs, and, unless they are publicly traded, you'd never know. Even if they are publicly traded, you still probably don't know. And in this darkness, in this no news is good news, you think the free-market is working miracles. I guarantee you if the same amount of media attention waspaid to one corporation in particular, it would be reviled by half the country too.

Anyway: Back to my list.

Public health care: Actually,when I was a young newspaper reporter, working 10, sometimes 12 hours a day into 2 a.m.my wife and I were struggling financially. So we, the lazy, living-off-the-system types, applied for and received state health care for our 1-year-old daughter. It was and remains the best health care I've ever been acquainted with. All they did was pay the bill. What is life like without government health care? Well, I suppose 47 million people could give you a pretty good answer. But so could I since I've never been able to afford health insurance until thelast four years of my life. It sucks.

Regarding the post office - it is funny, because when I sent a check by US Mail from NY to GA it actually cost me $35.44 because my daughter never received the check, so I had to pay for a stop payment on the check. It would have cost me a lot less money to have it wired or sent by Fed Ex or UPS. That is not the first time that I have sent mail that has not been received and there are numerous times that I have not received items that people have sent to me through the US Mail. Never had that problem with Fed Ex or UPS.

NOinHou, you might want to keep abreast of health insurance news. People who paid through the nose for long term care are finding out that they will not be covered because long term care insurers have been going out of business, etc (since these are incorporated, this didn't deprive individual executives from raking in the dough). Moreover, long term care coverage is very expensive and few people can actually afford it.

The govt has done a great job running Medicare, and yes a single payer system similar to those existing in ALL other industrialized countries would be great. But we are not speaking about that. We are trying to get health care reform so that insurers don't drop people who have paid premiums for years for pseudo pre-existing conditions and stop raising premiums at 300% above the rate of inflation.

The idea is to give them a bit of competition by providing a public option. Now if you're right and the govt can't do anything right, then the public option couldn't really be a threat to private insurers, right? So what are you frightened of????????

Ahhhhhh..... the eternal insurance conundrum. It's too expensive to buy, until you need it to pay a claim. Say what you want (and you have a legitimate concern) - I have a LTC policy, and I'm more than confident that it will pay if I ever need it. There are quite a number of carriers who have left the LTC market, but just as many who are comfortable with the risks on their books. But, unlike some, I don't think of insurance policies as a quick jackpot. I seriously hope I never have to make a claim on any of my policies - not LTC, LTD, home, auto, flood, health, life, etc. Because, if I do have to make a claim, it means that something terrible/burdensome/annoying has happened to me. I will take my risks and pay my premiums and pray that it's all a huge waste of money. Even if my premiums were 10x higher than they are, the cost is still better than having to 'self-insure' the risk. For example, my disability policy's annual premium is approximately 1% of the total annual benefit, should I ever need it. That's a small price to pay to make sure I will always be able to afford to eat, have a roof over my head, a car to drive to the doctor's office, etc. if I can't work.

But that's just me...

Love the National Parks! I always make a point to visit them when I can. If I had to pick one thing I think our gov't does do correctly, it's running the National Parks. I, too, have been to Ranier and a number of other parks, including a trip earlier this summer. State parks are great too.

You know what else is an outstanding government-run program? Public libraries.