+1.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
46.3 million Americans without health insurance
- Thread starter ASusilovic
- Start date
+1.
Happens all the time.
Insurance corporations deny benefits to the terminally ill. It's a standard procedure. Dead people don't file lawsuits and their relatives are easily paid off if they do go to court.
Your "Death Panel" is alive and well donating millions into the coffers of the no-solution nonsense swift-boat party.
The over haul earmarks more money be spent on preventive primary care to catch health problems before they escalate to where non-insured show up at the emergency room thereby driving up the cost.
You must be a member of the swift-boat party.
Insurance corporations deny benefits to the terminally ill. It's a standard procedure. Dead people don't file lawsuits and their relatives are easily paid off if they do go to court.
Your "Death Panel" is alive and well donating millions into the coffers of the no-solution nonsense swift-boat party.
The over haul earmarks more money be spent on preventive primary care to catch health problems before they escalate to where non-insured show up at the emergency room thereby driving up the cost.
You must be a member of the swift-boat party.
Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:
Death Panel: You're a 75 year old diabetic who isn't working. Neither that kidney, nor you, is worth $800,000 to our system. No can do.
Patient: Is there anything I can do.
Death Panel: Maybe we can outsource you to Delhi Dialysis. The procedure can be done there for $68,000. OR if you want it done here, you can sign over your assets. Upon death they're ours.
Think about it. Do you think Big Brother is going to save your geriatric ass for free and then allow your kids to receive an estate? Not gonna happen. Somebody is going to get paid. Insurance is zero sum. Everyone wants unlimited coverage at the same price they pay for summer electricity. It's over.Insurance is mis-priced-unless you don't care about when you die.
Quote from trefoil:
1. The larger the risk pool, the cheaper the cost.
2. See one.
That's the whole thing, and the reason why reform is needed, for two things, both of which will at minimum be in whatever is passed, and something will be passed:
1. No one gets dropped for pre-existing conditions.
2. Everyone has to be in it.
Why? See the top of this post.
That's all there is to it. The rest is smoke-blowing and hand-waving by ideologues and paid prostitutes of the insurance companies.
Every other advanced country in the world
1. ...doesn't drop anyone for pre-existing conditions, and
2. ...makes sure everyone has to be in it.
Why?
Because
1. The larger the risk pool, the cheaper the cost.
2. See one.
I hope that's clear.
Only if you can control the risk pool. If you can't then costs will go up.
You can't control the costs without rationing if you allow those with pre existing conditions into the pool. When I say rationing I mean telling someone that they are not getting that organ transplant etc.
Consider this. The reason that insurance companies don't cover pre existing now is because they don't know what to charge for it. If they knew what to charge then they would be selling it. Why wouldn't they write it if they knew what to charge?? Why would they care as long as they make money?
Quote from Mnphats:
How does putting 300 million Americans on the government health care single payer system gonna control costs?
Is it going to be how medicare works? Short change hospitals on certain procedures, only to charge the guy with health care double the amount to cover the cost of medicare patients. Ration care.
They have been saying health care is unsustainable for at least 20 years. I am not saying we need to lower costs but government control of health care is ludicrous.
I am in complete agreement with your post. While a single payer system might bring costs down by reducing paperwork (now 30% of cost) and eliminating the need to make a profit for share holders and still generate enough cash to pay CEO's multiple millions per year, I am not in favor of such a system in the US. The reason is that US medicine operates as a government sanctioned cartel. If single payer government healthcare was adopted here it would likely result in the present out of control costs being shifted 100% to the taxpayer with costs remaining out of control.
IMO, the only way to bring down costs in the U.S. is to accept somewhat more risk and deregulate medicine to a considerable extent by following the model of other countries.
This would mean, for example, having prescribing pharmacists, a vastly greater number of drugs being available without prescription, prescribing nurse practitioners operating independently of physicians, and eliminating state regulation of insurance companies and instead bringing them under control of the Department of Commerce as with other corporations. It would also help to depoliticize and reform the FDA.
I believe that introducing choice and competition will bring down costs. I don't believe the Obama plan goes nearly far enough to achieve this, though establishing a public option insurance plan may be of some help in introducing competition into the insurance market. Also, as I understand it, the Obama plan would require that everyone have some kind of insurance thus expanding the risk pool that trefoil noted as helpful.
Quote from jficquette:
Only if you can control the risk pool. If you can't then costs will go up.
You can't control the costs without rationing if you allow those with pre existing conditions into the pool. When I say rationing I mean telling someone that they are not getting that organ transplant etc.
Your 2nd statement makes no sense.
If you don't allow those with pre-existing conditions into the pool, you also can't tell everyone they have to be in it. Without the latter, you can't control costs, because the healthy will opt out.
We are, remember, not talking about insuring the old, they've already got Medicare. The poor, who also tend to get sick more, have Medicaid. So the pool we're looking at is working age folks and their children.
If you allow opt-outs, the childless will opt out because children do tend to go to the doctor more. This will increase the insurance cost for families. Families have enough struggles without the added struggle of paying more for insurance because the selfish, anti-social types of people who decide not to have families also decide to stay out of health insurance.
Which is precisely where we are now.
Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:
As a society have we ever pondered that compared to the cost of housing, perhaps insurance is too cheap?
This is a very good point. Personally, I don't have a dog in this fight, I've lived with both private and universal healthcare and they can both be made to work very well.
HOWEVER - as long as the US maintains a culture of fiscal irresponsibility where so many voters feel they have a G-d given right to more services than they are paying for - in that context - any kind of "universal" healthcare will immediately turn into subsidized health care. And that subsidy - like most politically favorable subsidies - will invariably grow over time.
Or to put it in Pabst's original terms - the insurance will be too cheap and all that's really happened is another deferred time bomb has been placed in the attic.
Quote from GATECHGRAD:
So 8 pages of comments, and not a single one about the need for tort reform in this country? Malpractice insurance is quite expensive, and for sure doctors order potentially unnecessary tests just so that they could have some CYA protection in the event of a lawsuit.
One other note to the guys from NY bitching about the price of healtcare. The way NY has their regulations setup people of all ages pay virtually the same premium for the same coverage and there is an ENORMOUS list of mandatory things that a plan must cover, so if you are younger you have no option of choosing a less expensive plan.
The scary thing about the gov't plan is the "pay or play". If you choose to cover employees, you have to cover 100% of them. I work for a German company with about 250,000 employees, and we average a cost of $7,500 per person. So the math is simple, if 8% of your payroll is less than $7,500 per person, you simply drop your health coverage (which I was promised I could keep if I like it, assuming that my employer still wants to offer it) for all your employees, next thing you know we are all in the gubmint plan. Total Bullshit.
Tort reform seems like a good idea, but hasn't it been tried on a State level? Texas perhaps? Didn't it result in no difference in cost to patients, i.e., savings to physicians were not passed on?
Quote from GATECHGRAD:
So 8 pages of comments, and not a single one about the need for tort reform in this country?
Someone went to the trouble of adding it up - all the legal costs of health care deliver - settlements, litigation costs, the whole pie - is around $6B per year. That's about $16 per capita, per year.
Or put another way, eliminating malpractice issues in their entirety - for free - would only trim ~0.5% off of the country's aggregate medical expense.
Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:
The point is I'm a capitalist, a believer in free markets and you're a socialist.
You can be a capitalist and also want some socialist programs, it isn't an all or nothing question. Our government built the highways, ran electrical lines in the country provide care to the elderly and poor, run the military, post office, all law enforcement is some form of government as is firefighters and all these don't make us a socialist country only a smart and caring country. What we have here in America isn't perfect but it is damn good I think.
In my opinion, our country can afford a health care plan that covers all of us. This might be able to be achieved just by regulation of the insurance industry, and if the republicans cared any they could have gotten regulations through while they were in power and avoided all this, but they don't care, not about health care for the individual.