Health Care Reform and the Law

[OldGreyEagle]

Medicare and Medicaid dosen't pay cost now, why would they start?

 

We are confusing future Healthcare with present tense health care, the predictions range from less waiting time and improved quakity if care due to Government initiatives and mandates to horribly long wait times and decreased quality of care due to Government initiatives and mandates

 

I guess it comes down to if you are a glass half empty or full kind of guy; also, how well you think goverment can efficiently run an industry

[GernBlansten]

"What will be the premium cost for the average family that the government will have to pick up?"

 

We already pay for this through increased insurance premiums and health care costs. The current losers in the existing system are us schmucks who dutifully pay for our private insurance to cover the increased costs of providing health care for the freeloaders.

 

The tax simply transfers the costs to those who choose to not be insured. The freeloaders.

[BS-87]

Something makes me seriously doubt making everyone buy health insurance will reduce premiums for us "schmucks" who are already dutifully paying. Increased customer volume means greater staffing needs and advertising needs (imagine the competition we're going to start seeing). And why would a company that gets a steady income from you at your own will decide "Hey, we really have nothing better to do with this money like employing people or pumping it into advertising: let's lower the rates."

[scoutingagain]

"What will be the premium cost for the average family that the government will have to pick up?"

 

Probably less than what the average family pays now. Right now, the system supports dozens of administrative bureaucracies for individual companies that also have to satisfy stockholder demands for profits. Under a single payer system there would be one administrative bureaucracy. Yes, as a government agency it probably would be somewhat less efficient when compared to a single insurance company, but in aggregate would probably be more efficient than the current overall system. ie. more dollars would go to care rather than executives and managers.

 

The big advantage would be, from a pro-business standpoint, would be to get private businesses out of the health care insurance business. Our companies cannot compete with their counterparts from other countries when they have to absorb the cost or even a part of the cost of employee health care. They are at a hugh disadvantage. Ultimately to be a competitor in the world economy we need to decouple health care from employment. That means either individuals buy their own insurance or the government provides it. That's why the current health care bill that follows the Dole/Romney approach of requiring individuals to purchase insurance is the much more conservative approach. Unless folks want to continue to cripple our private companies, the generators of wealth and jobs.

 

 

SA

 

[GernBlansten]

BS-87, competition will keep costs in check. It's a fundemental component of capitalism.

[BS-87]

I'm not saying the costs won't be in check, I'm saying we're not going to see much if any reduction in personal costs.

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmm.... lots of partial understandings here. On my part too!

 

E-87, the question of the constitutionality of SS and Medicare and the like was decided some 70 years ago. Now I know how much da neo-cons despise good conservative principles like stare decisis, but let's try not to go there.

 

I think it's worth rememberin' that the "freeloaders" are people like we've seen on prior threads, eh? The Boy Scout who was injured at camp and needed several surgeries, whose parents didn't have health insurance because dad was out of work and they were tryin' to hold on to the house. "Drive them into bankruptcy!!" is of course what's goin' on, but is that what we really want? A Boy Scout and his siblings losing all hope of college and becoming homeless because of a camp injury?

 

Da "freeloaders" as oft as not are real, honest, ordinary, hardworkin' people. Friends and neighbors hit with bad luck.

 

In da short run, a well-managed program could lower costs through competition and the inclusion of what percentage-wise are a relatively healthy younger demographic. In the longer run, it's unsustainable without reductions in care for the older folks. The U.S. demographics with our one-child "planned" families just won't support a medical Ponzi scheme any more than they will support SS and Medicare. And Congress did its usual thing coverin' up the long term costs by including provisions that provide short term income - like providing long term care (nursing) coverage in da package. For 10 years or so, that's goin' to be income-producing. But after that when the demographic wave hits it'll be a boondoggle.

 

Without a population growth demographic curve, yeh can't sustain medical coverage for the non-working elderly who are living progressively longer. Period. Doesn't matter whether da provider is private or public. With a down-trending and aging population, yeh can't even reasonably sustain health care for the working elderly.

 

Only way out is to cut care for the elderly and encourage emigration of young, employable folks. Which are da two solutions that are politically untenable for politicians. So we go da way of Greece, eh? We borrow more and commit an ever higher percentage of GDP to the problem until no one will loan us any more money. Then we go bankrupt and leave our grandchildren and their children with... Greece.

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[BrentAllen]

scoutingagain,

I think you are confusing employer-offered plans with something else. Just because an employer offers a plan doesn't mean the employer is paying all the costs. Employees often pay most of the cost, through payroll deduction. The full cost doesn't hit the bottom line of the business, so I don't see how that makes us uncompetitive in the world market place. Your argument is one for doing away with unions, which drive up the cost of business here in the US. Good luck fighting that battle, if you are even for it.

 

Beavah,

I thought the BSA (or at least the Councils) provided insurance that was secondary. Is this a real case or hypothetical?

[packsaddle]

"Then we go bankrupt and leave our grandchildren and their children with... Greece."

Hey, that's supposed to be MY line. But yep, I see it as inevitable. We'll be lucky for it only to be like Greece.

[GernBlansten]

The problem with employer-offered plans is it insulates the end consumer of the true cost of the service. If employees had to purchase insurance independently from their employers (like car insurance), they would probably demand much more for the cost they realize or jump to competitors. Hiding a portion of those costs and offering limited options keeps the demands of the insurance providers down and keeps scared employees indentured to their masters. Not a very free market solution where competition can weed out inefficient and unfair providers.

[Eagle92]

I have some very serious concerns about the new health care law, as well as universal healthcare.

 

I met someone whose job is to know healthcare laws and advise healthcare facilities on what to do. the individual has told me that because of the language and vagueness of the new law, it is virtually impossible to figure out what facilities should do because there is no direction to large parts of the law as it will be made up as they go along. Again this is a healthcare expert and he cannot make sense of the new law. I kid you not!

 

As for universal coverage I my question is this: if it is so good, then why do folks that can afford US healthcare from countries that have universal healthcare come here? I mean the Saudi king was in NYC for surgery, yet his country has western trained physicians and universal healthcare. Why is France looking at the US model of mixed public and private insurance in their healthcare reform models? Why is there such long waits in the UK, Canada, and other countries with universal healthcare?

 

OK more later as my blood pressure is getting high.

[GernBlansten]

I'll tell you why Saudi kings come to America for healthcare. America has the best care money can buy. If you have the money, come here! Unfortunately, that isn't the case for the grocery store clerk working part time without health insurance and his kid has type 1 diabetes. Or the factory worker who lost his job in the economic downturn and his daughter has a medical condition that qualifies as a pre-existing condition and is denied coverage when he sells his family inheritance to pay for private healthcare.

Yes, if you are a Saudi king, you come to America, the land of opportunity!

[Eagle92]

Gern,

 

So let me get this straight, it's ok for the Saudi king to tell the US that we need universal healthcare like his country, but instead of using his country's healthcare system, which is free to all, he comes here instead? I think that and other foreign officials comign here proves that we have the best healthcare.

 

And using the examples above, universal healthcare decreases the level of healthcare for a variety of reason. 1) With mandated payments by the government that cannot sustain medical practices, there will be fewer physicians to practice, increasing wait times, forcing docs to take on more patient per day resultign in less time to do a proper diagnosis. We already have that problem, and docs are either retiring earlier than planned or not accepting new medicare/medicaid patients. And don't get me started on the medicare/medicaid patch that congress slaps on each year to allow docs to get some reinbursement.

 

2)With universal coverage, physicans will be mandated as to what they can and cannot do by the government. You do a procedure that the government does not authorize, even if the patient can pay out of pocket, then the physician gets fined. Don't remember what countries do that, but I the UK and several others. Canada no longer has that policy if memory serves b/c and one person sued the Canadian government to allow him to pay his physician to do a procedure the governement not only would not pay for, but would not allow the doc to perform. that case went to the Canadian Supreme Court, whcih stated in their decision that Canada's universal healthcare system has killed people because of long waits, and not allowing docs to perform surgeries requested by the patient. That's why lots of small private practices that don't take Canadacare are popping up.

 

3) with not enough folks goignto medical school, medical innovation will slow down. Why do you think folks come to the US for research.

 

[GernBlansten]

Tell you what, here's the deal...

You worry about making sure Saudi Kings and the ultra rich have access to the best health care their money can buy.

I'll worry about making sure every American has access to basic health care without worrying about being financially ruined.

[packsaddle]

I like New Hampshire's approach: Live Free or Die.

But it seems to me that smart people could figure out which one of THOSE to choose pretty quickly.