There are several other reforms that have been suggested that would not put the country deeper in debt and would actually bring down costs. Some that I like are:Allow competition to expand by allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. There are over 1300 health insurance companies nationwide, but with these state protections, some states are 80% held by one company. If those mandates were relaxed, you would have thousands of options versus the few that you now have. And, you would be able to keep it when you moved to a different state. If insurance could be purchased from any of the 1300+ insurance companies, competition would explode bringing service up and costs down. If the government allowed the insurance companies to offer more plans without requiring what they cover, it could work more like car insurance. Removing mandates would mean that insurance companies could offer a variety of plans and you could choose them like you choose car insurance plans - only what you need. You could decide what copay was comfortable for you and what you needed to cover. If you were a 30 year old single male, you would not need to buy a plan that covered maternity, for instance. Additionally, if we paid outright for office visits (like we do for oil changes on our car), the doctors could lower the cost of all their paperwork and office visits would be relatively inexpensive. Insurers could lower their costs because that would be relieved of a huge number of claims. There are doctors doing this now and it works great. Doctors and patients are very happy. I have heard countless stories of people who took control of their own healthcare and shopped several doctors and paid outright for a treatment and they saved thousands of dollars. Another huge solution would be to put in some guidelines for malpractice lawsuits. Right now, there are no limits. If they put in guidelines much like they have for sentencing of crimes, it would greatly reduce the risks and doctor's insurance would go down, which would bring down doctor's costs. So, for instance, the limit on the amount that could be sued for a doctor who chopped off a leg that didn't need to be removed would be different than the amount that you could sue for someone who gave you a prescription that made you nauseous. Additionally, there would be limits on who could be sued and what percentage the lawyers can get. Additionally, the amount of tests and CYA procedures that doctors do would decrease if the doctors were not worried about getting sued out of their practice.Finally, give tax writeoffs for individuals for medical expenses. The IRS only allows employers to get tax benefits, which is why we have an employer based system now. This makes the individual uninvolved in the costs or choices made on behalf of them. Give tax incentives to individuals, not just employers, so people can take more charge of their individual health needs. Additionally, groups could band together to purchase to bring down costs. If we could deduct our medical costs (right off the bat saving us about 30%) and could shop from the thousands of health insurers like we do for car insurance (best plan that we could afford tailored to our needs offering coverage that we needed with deductible that we were comfortable with, etc.), this would take care of a lot of the problems.The answers are simple and if left to the individual who is shopping for their own needs, they would make a much better decision for themselves. Giving the authority to make all of your health decisions to a bloated, corrupt government who will make this as big of a beaurocratic mess as the IRS is the wrong direction. I'd much rather put faith in myself and my doctor to make the best decisions for me and my family.
"You don't know if you can afford to cover everyone unless you know how much it's going to cost. So, how much is it going to cost?"Don't care. It's the right thing to do. We'll find the money -- maybe borrow more from China. If it's worth borrowing from China to kill tens of thousands of people in the Middle East, then it's worth it to provide health care insurance to Americans. Tell me, were you asking these same questions when Bush was proposing tax cuts? Were you suggesting that he cut just a little and see how that works out? It's fine for you to smugly sit there comfortable in the knowledge that you have insurance, proposing all kinds of slow experiments that will last for decades, but that's not moving fast enough for people who can't get the insurance now."If covering everybody's health care will bankrupt the government, or create hyper-inflation, it's really not worth it, is it?"Since they've proven all over Europe and Canada that it is possible to provide high-quality, universal health care, are you suggesting that Americans are just too stupid to be able to do the same thing?Or are you afraid that the care you would receive under such a system would be less good than what you receive now (even though studies indicate the opposite would happen)? I'm okay with your quality of care diminishing if it means that millions of people with no insurance could get insurance and access to life-saving care.
We already have socialized medical programs in this country: The VA, Medicare & Medicaid. I am a recipient of both Medicare & Medicaid & I know dozens of vets who use the VA system & if there's 1 word I could use to describe it, it is FAIL! The VA is so chock full of fail it's synonymous with the word fail. Medicare & Medicaid are being abused & misused, & those of us with life threatening illnesses have a whole bunch of hurdles to jump over to protect ourselves & even then, we have to contend with the government using corrupt prescription insurance companies, who do all they can to deny the patients their life saving medicines. Please do some research on the UK & Canada to see just how bad things can get with socialized medicine before you praise how wonderful it can be. I am scared that when (not if, because the POTUS is GOING to make it happen come hell or high water) this new Obama Care is put into action, I will be given a death sentence because they will proclaim me to be a drain on the system, while there will be plenty of folks who never worked a day in their lives & paid into SS, or Medicare, who will be given the "golden ticket" to abuse the system put in place. These are some scary times & I just hope I am able to live to see things get better.
@fmmaxwell - after reading through this lengthy exchange, I see you finally get to the heart of the matter with your last post:"I see the entire health-insurance-for-profit concept to be horribly flawed. It's got built-in disincentives to providing good care for people who need it"That is the entire problem in a nutshell, that health insurance is a for-profit industry. Take the profit out of health insurance, run it as a benevolent not-for-profit service, and you will have erased most of the biggest problems we face in providing affordable health care for all. Unfortunately, no one is proposing to do such a thing. What we're being told is that the government can simply throw it's hat into the ring with all the other insurers, and do a better, more efficient job - AND bring health care costs down across the board by mere competition alone. I say this notion is preposterous, because the health insurance industry already has costs jacked sky-high, the market that the government wants to enter into is completely controlled and dominated by the existing insurers. This is why we hear proposals to enforce mandatory health insurance for all, because unless the government insures significantly more people than are already insured by the private sector, it will not be able to compete, especially not at a rate that will magically cause all insurers to lower their rates in order to compete with the government. I'm all for a sensible plan which would provide single-payer care at an affordable rate, but I don't see it happening unless we completely do away with for-profit health insurance altogether. I do hear some positive ideas being floated, such as eliminating "pre-existing conditions" and making insurance portable from state to state - but I don't hear anything that even comes close to the ideal of not-for-profit insurance across the board. Maybe if our politicians didn't depend on huge campaign subsidies from the insurance industry, we could really effect some positive changes. Until then, as long as we allow health insurance to continue as a for-profit industry, there's no point in having the government enter the racket known as heath care insurance - especially not by force. It's constitutionally unfair to force another tax on already over-taxed Americans in order to attempt to fix health care.I would be all for a government plan if: a) the government first mandates the profit out of the health insurance industry altogether, b) the program is voluntary, not mandatory, and c) it insists on collective bargaining with the pharmaceutical industry in order to force down costs.Show me a plan which steps firmly in this direction, and I'll gladly support it. So far we have nothing on the table which represents these ideals.
ShovelbabyMar 16, 2010Submitter
There are several other reforms that have been suggested that would not put the country deeper in debt and would actually bring down costs. Some that I like are:Allow competition to expand by allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. There are over 1300 health insurance companies nationwide, but with these state protections, some states are 80% held by one company. If those mandates were relaxed, you would have thousands of options versus the few that you now have. And, you would be able to keep it when you moved to a different state. If insurance could be purchased from any of the 1300+ insurance companies, competition would explode bringing service up and costs down. If the government allowed the insurance companies to offer more plans without requiring what they cover, it could work more like car insurance. Removing mandates would mean that insurance companies could offer a variety of plans and you could choose them like you choose car insurance plans - only what you need. You could decide what copay was comfortable for you and what you needed to cover. If you were a 30 year old single male, you would not need to buy a plan that covered maternity, for instance. Additionally, if we paid outright for office visits (like we do for oil changes on our car), the doctors could lower the cost of all their paperwork and office visits would be relatively inexpensive. Insurers could lower their costs because that would be relieved of a huge number of claims. There are doctors doing this now and it works great. Doctors and patients are very happy. I have heard countless stories of people who took control of their own healthcare and shopped several doctors and paid outright for a treatment and they saved thousands of dollars. Another huge solution would be to put in some guidelines for malpractice lawsuits. Right now, there are no limits. If they put in guidelines much like they have for sentencing of crimes, it would greatly reduce the risks and doctor's insurance would go down, which would bring down doctor's costs. So, for instance, the limit on the amount that could be sued for a doctor who chopped off a leg that didn't need to be removed would be different than the amount that you could sue for someone who gave you a prescription that made you nauseous. Additionally, there would be limits on who could be sued and what percentage the lawyers can get. Additionally, the amount of tests and CYA procedures that doctors do would decrease if the doctors were not worried about getting sued out of their practice.Finally, give tax writeoffs for individuals for medical expenses. The IRS only allows employers to get tax benefits, which is why we have an employer based system now. This makes the individual uninvolved in the costs or choices made on behalf of them. Give tax incentives to individuals, not just employers, so people can take more charge of their individual health needs. Additionally, groups could band together to purchase to bring down costs. If we could deduct our medical costs (right off the bat saving us about 30%) and could shop from the thousands of health insurers like we do for car insurance (best plan that we could afford tailored to our needs offering coverage that we needed with deductible that we were comfortable with, etc.), this would take care of a lot of the problems.The answers are simple and if left to the individual who is shopping for their own needs, they would make a much better decision for themselves. Giving the authority to make all of your health decisions to a bloated, corrupt government who will make this as big of a beaurocratic mess as the IRS is the wrong direction. I'd much rather put faith in myself and my doctor to make the best decisions for me and my family.
Closed AccountMar 17, 2010
"You don't know if you can afford to cover everyone unless you know how much it's going to cost. So, how much is it going to cost?"Don't care. It's the right thing to do. We'll find the money -- maybe borrow more from China. If it's worth borrowing from China to kill tens of thousands of people in the Middle East, then it's worth it to provide health care insurance to Americans. Tell me, were you asking these same questions when Bush was proposing tax cuts? Were you suggesting that he cut just a little and see how that works out? It's fine for you to smugly sit there comfortable in the knowledge that you have insurance, proposing all kinds of slow experiments that will last for decades, but that's not moving fast enough for people who can't get the insurance now."If covering everybody's health care will bankrupt the government, or create hyper-inflation, it's really not worth it, is it?"Since they've proven all over Europe and Canada that it is possible to provide high-quality, universal health care, are you suggesting that Americans are just too stupid to be able to do the same thing?Or are you afraid that the care you would receive under such a system would be less good than what you receive now (even though studies indicate the opposite would happen)? I'm okay with your quality of care diminishing if it means that millions of people with no insurance could get insurance and access to life-saving care.
mrzaikoMar 17, 2010
Good info, I actually read the whole thing =)
kaycee71Mar 17, 2010
We already have socialized medical programs in this country: The VA, Medicare & Medicaid. I am a recipient of both Medicare & Medicaid & I know dozens of vets who use the VA system & if there's 1 word I could use to describe it, it is FAIL! The VA is so chock full of fail it's synonymous with the word fail. Medicare & Medicaid are being abused & misused, & those of us with life threatening illnesses have a whole bunch of hurdles to jump over to protect ourselves & even then, we have to contend with the government using corrupt prescription insurance companies, who do all they can to deny the patients their life saving medicines. Please do some research on the UK & Canada to see just how bad things can get with socialized medicine before you praise how wonderful it can be. I am scared that when (not if, because the POTUS is GOING to make it happen come hell or high water) this new Obama Care is put into action, I will be given a death sentence because they will proclaim me to be a drain on the system, while there will be plenty of folks who never worked a day in their lives & paid into SS, or Medicare, who will be given the "golden ticket" to abuse the system put in place. These are some scary times & I just hope I am able to live to see things get better.
prosequiMar 18, 2010
@Samueul: USPTO - US Patent & Trademark Office. You're referring to USPS - US Postal Service.
edvilleMar 18, 2010
85%...???
zzekeMar 18, 2010
@fmmaxwell - after reading through this lengthy exchange, I see you finally get to the heart of the matter with your last post:"I see the entire health-insurance-for-profit concept to be horribly flawed. It's got built-in disincentives to providing good care for people who need it"That is the entire problem in a nutshell, that health insurance is a for-profit industry. Take the profit out of health insurance, run it as a benevolent not-for-profit service, and you will have erased most of the biggest problems we face in providing affordable health care for all. Unfortunately, no one is proposing to do such a thing. What we're being told is that the government can simply throw it's hat into the ring with all the other insurers, and do a better, more efficient job - AND bring health care costs down across the board by mere competition alone. I say this notion is preposterous, because the health insurance industry already has costs jacked sky-high, the market that the government wants to enter into is completely controlled and dominated by the existing insurers. This is why we hear proposals to enforce mandatory health insurance for all, because unless the government insures significantly more people than are already insured by the private sector, it will not be able to compete, especially not at a rate that will magically cause all insurers to lower their rates in order to compete with the government. I'm all for a sensible plan which would provide single-payer care at an affordable rate, but I don't see it happening unless we completely do away with for-profit health insurance altogether. I do hear some positive ideas being floated, such as eliminating "pre-existing conditions" and making insurance portable from state to state - but I don't hear anything that even comes close to the ideal of not-for-profit insurance across the board. Maybe if our politicians didn't depend on huge campaign subsidies from the insurance industry, we could really effect some positive changes. Until then, as long as we allow health insurance to continue as a for-profit industry, there's no point in having the government enter the racket known as heath care insurance - especially not by force. It's constitutionally unfair to force another tax on already over-taxed Americans in order to attempt to fix health care.I would be all for a government plan if: a) the government first mandates the profit out of the health insurance industry altogether, b) the program is voluntary, not mandatory, and c) it insists on collective bargaining with the pharmaceutical industry in order to force down costs.Show me a plan which steps firmly in this direction, and I'll gladly support it. So far we have nothing on the table which represents these ideals.
mitchr777Mar 19, 2010
"I got a letter from the government the other day.I opened and read it. It said they were suckers."
mykonos08Jun 9, 2010
did you 45kdead? Hell, when was the last time an entitlement program ever saved us money?
mykonos08Jun 9, 2010
nobility would be helping the sick on my own volition, not by government mandate.