Obama Care Vs Affordable care act.

[JoeBob]

There are only two simple ways to go in all this. We either have individuals making their own decisions and paying their own way with no shared risk, or else we share the risk (and the costs). We long ago made the decision to turn away from the free market approach and when I say 'we' I mean nearly every last one of us. We decided to have employers paying part of the premium. We decided to have HMOs. We decided to form any number of groups who share the risk, which also include Medicare and Medicaid. But WE also decided to exclude anyone who couldn't 'fit in' with the requirements to be part of one of those other groups and 'those' people are the ones that the ACA will bring into the shared risk.

 

I do get what is happening. What is happening is merely a logical extension of what we all decided to do a long time ago and that was NOT to have individuals take individual responsibility and accept the risks and costs for whatever life had for them. So Be It.

 

Anyone who is not ready to relinquish their employer contributions or their Medicare or their VA benefits or whatever other shared risk subsidy they have....tough luck. The real issue is that you like the benefits of shared risk that you receive and you don't want to apply that standard to others who are less fortunate because you don't want to pay more to share those added risks. I DO get it. Again, I advocate for abolition of employer contributions and all subsidized benefits like Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, or any other shared risk approach. Make a fair wage and pay a fair price for medical care IF you can afford it. If not, the market and life will make the correction.

" Make a fair wage and pay a fair price for medical care IF you can afford it. If not, the market and life will make the correction"

.Agree.

[Nike]

Whatever is "actually" going to come of this will be a mess. IF, instead of spending the last three years trying to get rid of it we had studied the likely issues and changed things, while still holding to the supposed intent, then maybe we could be in a better position. Those who think the system worked before must live in a fantasy world. That we continue to be at the mercy of the Insurance Industry is the real problem. What makes our society different from most of the world is simply that we seem to think basic medical care is not enough. Much of what we insist we need is expensive and beyond most people's reach anyway. Prices have gone up exponentially "before" this particular fiasco. I was uninsured other than basic VA (fortunate in that regard) once I lost my job due to downsizing until Medicare kicked in. We also add to the problem by allowing the Lawyers to constantly hover and threaten, making doctors afraid to NOT do another test or treatment, even when they know it is not needed. Somehow you have to deal with the indigent who need basic care; right now that is through emergency centers. And since they have to treat, those of us that are more fortunate pay more.

 

So, all of you that keep screaming how terrible it is, please find an actual solution that is equitable to ALL. Some things are simply necessary, and dealing with them by taxes or similar government involvement is really the only way to be sure it happens. Take the profit motive out of the health industry and you have half the fix. Put limits back on the pharmaceutical industry such as no public advertising, and restricting their strangle hold on supply and costs go down. Let doctors be doctors, not paper pushers; and find a way to have family practitioners be the norm, rather than specialists.

 

Of course, all of this is just way too hard to do; it might require a little bit of "Common Sense". But of course that is no longer found in most of our public theater, and is quickly disappearing from even the average person's lives.

KDD is correct. Other countries are freeriding on our pharmaceutical industry. The US industry is the only one doing significant R&D. My SIL works for big pharma and they have very few overseas partners because those pharma industries have just shut down R&D.

 

We are going to be in a world of hurt in about twenty years due to the lack of pharmaceutical research today, because that's how long it takes to get the average drug from thought to pharmacist.

[Nike]

Whatever is "actually" going to come of this will be a mess. IF, instead of spending the last three years trying to get rid of it we had studied the likely issues and changed things, while still holding to the supposed intent, then maybe we could be in a better position. Those who think the system worked before must live in a fantasy world. That we continue to be at the mercy of the Insurance Industry is the real problem. What makes our society different from most of the world is simply that we seem to think basic medical care is not enough. Much of what we insist we need is expensive and beyond most people's reach anyway. Prices have gone up exponentially "before" this particular fiasco. I was uninsured other than basic VA (fortunate in that regard) once I lost my job due to downsizing until Medicare kicked in. We also add to the problem by allowing the Lawyers to constantly hover and threaten, making doctors afraid to NOT do another test or treatment, even when they know it is not needed. Somehow you have to deal with the indigent who need basic care; right now that is through emergency centers. And since they have to treat, those of us that are more fortunate pay more.

 

So, all of you that keep screaming how terrible it is, please find an actual solution that is equitable to ALL. Some things are simply necessary, and dealing with them by taxes or similar government involvement is really the only way to be sure it happens. Take the profit motive out of the health industry and you have half the fix. Put limits back on the pharmaceutical industry such as no public advertising, and restricting their strangle hold on supply and costs go down. Let doctors be doctors, not paper pushers; and find a way to have family practitioners be the norm, rather than specialists.

 

Of course, all of this is just way too hard to do; it might require a little bit of "Common Sense". But of course that is no longer found in most of our public theater, and is quickly disappearing from even the average person's lives.

KDD is correct. Other countries are freeriding on our pharmaceutical industry. The US industry is the only one doing significant R&D. My SIL works for big pharma and they have very few overseas partners because those pharma industries have just shut down R&D.

 

We are going to be in a world of hurt in about twenty years due to the lack of pharmaceutical research today, because that's how long it takes to get the average drug from thought to pharmacist.

[Eagledad]

Whatever is "actually" going to come of this will be a mess. IF, instead of spending the last three years trying to get rid of it we had studied the likely issues and changed things, while still holding to the supposed intent, then maybe we could be in a better position. Those who think the system worked before must live in a fantasy world. That we continue to be at the mercy of the Insurance Industry is the real problem. What makes our society different from most of the world is simply that we seem to think basic medical care is not enough. Much of what we insist we need is expensive and beyond most people's reach anyway. Prices have gone up exponentially "before" this particular fiasco. I was uninsured other than basic VA (fortunate in that regard) once I lost my job due to downsizing until Medicare kicked in. We also add to the problem by allowing the Lawyers to constantly hover and threaten, making doctors afraid to NOT do another test or treatment, even when they know it is not needed. Somehow you have to deal with the indigent who need basic care; right now that is through emergency centers. And since they have to treat, those of us that are more fortunate pay more.

 

So, all of you that keep screaming how terrible it is, please find an actual solution that is equitable to ALL. Some things are simply necessary, and dealing with them by taxes or similar government involvement is really the only way to be sure it happens. Take the profit motive out of the health industry and you have half the fix. Put limits back on the pharmaceutical industry such as no public advertising, and restricting their strangle hold on supply and costs go down. Let doctors be doctors, not paper pushers; and find a way to have family practitioners be the norm, rather than specialists.

 

Of course, all of this is just way too hard to do; it might require a little bit of "Common Sense". But of course that is no longer found in most of our public theater, and is quickly disappearing from even the average person's lives.

Its not a lawyer thing, it's law passed on the pharmaceutical companies during the Clinton area. Surely you can remember how the democrats demonized the industry just like do big oil now. Barry

[packsaddle]

Whatever is "actually" going to come of this will be a mess. IF, instead of spending the last three years trying to get rid of it we had studied the likely issues and changed things, while still holding to the supposed intent, then maybe we could be in a better position. Those who think the system worked before must live in a fantasy world. That we continue to be at the mercy of the Insurance Industry is the real problem. What makes our society different from most of the world is simply that we seem to think basic medical care is not enough. Much of what we insist we need is expensive and beyond most people's reach anyway. Prices have gone up exponentially "before" this particular fiasco. I was uninsured other than basic VA (fortunate in that regard) once I lost my job due to downsizing until Medicare kicked in. We also add to the problem by allowing the Lawyers to constantly hover and threaten, making doctors afraid to NOT do another test or treatment, even when they know it is not needed. Somehow you have to deal with the indigent who need basic care; right now that is through emergency centers. And since they have to treat, those of us that are more fortunate pay more.

 

So, all of you that keep screaming how terrible it is, please find an actual solution that is equitable to ALL. Some things are simply necessary, and dealing with them by taxes or similar government involvement is really the only way to be sure it happens. Take the profit motive out of the health industry and you have half the fix. Put limits back on the pharmaceutical industry such as no public advertising, and restricting their strangle hold on supply and costs go down. Let doctors be doctors, not paper pushers; and find a way to have family practitioners be the norm, rather than specialists.

 

Of course, all of this is just way too hard to do; it might require a little bit of "Common Sense". But of course that is no longer found in most of our public theater, and is quickly disappearing from even the average person's lives.

I have heard this claim fairly often and although I'm a wholehearted proponent of allowing the free market to work, there is an opposing view to the idea that the USA is "the only one doing significant R&D".

 

http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/08/25/europe-leads-in-pharmaceutical-research/

 

Your response?

[Stosh]

Whatever is "actually" going to come of this will be a mess. IF, instead of spending the last three years trying to get rid of it we had studied the likely issues and changed things, while still holding to the supposed intent, then maybe we could be in a better position. Those who think the system worked before must live in a fantasy world. That we continue to be at the mercy of the Insurance Industry is the real problem. What makes our society different from most of the world is simply that we seem to think basic medical care is not enough. Much of what we insist we need is expensive and beyond most people's reach anyway. Prices have gone up exponentially "before" this particular fiasco. I was uninsured other than basic VA (fortunate in that regard) once I lost my job due to downsizing until Medicare kicked in. We also add to the problem by allowing the Lawyers to constantly hover and threaten, making doctors afraid to NOT do another test or treatment, even when they know it is not needed. Somehow you have to deal with the indigent who need basic care; right now that is through emergency centers. And since they have to treat, those of us that are more fortunate pay more.

 

So, all of you that keep screaming how terrible it is, please find an actual solution that is equitable to ALL. Some things are simply necessary, and dealing with them by taxes or similar government involvement is really the only way to be sure it happens. Take the profit motive out of the health industry and you have half the fix. Put limits back on the pharmaceutical industry such as no public advertising, and restricting their strangle hold on supply and costs go down. Let doctors be doctors, not paper pushers; and find a way to have family practitioners be the norm, rather than specialists.

 

Of course, all of this is just way too hard to do; it might require a little bit of "Common Sense". But of course that is no longer found in most of our public theater, and is quickly disappearing from even the average person's lives.

It's always popular to demonize big businesses. Some schmuck is making way too much money. Well, so are all the thousands of people working in the jobs these schmucks are providing. So we knock off the millionaire on the top of the heap, but what about the damage done to the thousands of workers that were also making pretty good money, too. They don't count because Big Business is the Devil Incarnate! So the coal miner, the oil rig operator, the pharmaceutical tech are all standing in soup lines because they have been tagged minions of Satan.

 

Well, I must be the spawn of Evil, because I am ecstatic that I work for a multi-billion dollar, international company that provides a good wage and health benefits. The guy at the top makes more money in 5 minutes than I do all year. So what. I'm not on the dole, I don't use food stamps, I don't need ObamaCare, and I'm free. What more could one ask for?

 

I support big business, because I want others to have a chance at what I have, too. It's what the American Dream is all about.

 

Stosh

[packsaddle]

Whatever is "actually" going to come of this will be a mess. IF, instead of spending the last three years trying to get rid of it we had studied the likely issues and changed things, while still holding to the supposed intent, then maybe we could be in a better position. Those who think the system worked before must live in a fantasy world. That we continue to be at the mercy of the Insurance Industry is the real problem. What makes our society different from most of the world is simply that we seem to think basic medical care is not enough. Much of what we insist we need is expensive and beyond most people's reach anyway. Prices have gone up exponentially "before" this particular fiasco. I was uninsured other than basic VA (fortunate in that regard) once I lost my job due to downsizing until Medicare kicked in. We also add to the problem by allowing the Lawyers to constantly hover and threaten, making doctors afraid to NOT do another test or treatment, even when they know it is not needed. Somehow you have to deal with the indigent who need basic care; right now that is through emergency centers. And since they have to treat, those of us that are more fortunate pay more.

 

So, all of you that keep screaming how terrible it is, please find an actual solution that is equitable to ALL. Some things are simply necessary, and dealing with them by taxes or similar government involvement is really the only way to be sure it happens. Take the profit motive out of the health industry and you have half the fix. Put limits back on the pharmaceutical industry such as no public advertising, and restricting their strangle hold on supply and costs go down. Let doctors be doctors, not paper pushers; and find a way to have family practitioners be the norm, rather than specialists.

 

Of course, all of this is just way too hard to do; it might require a little bit of "Common Sense". But of course that is no longer found in most of our public theater, and is quickly disappearing from even the average person's lives.

I'll be happier to try to understand the economics without invoking demons or mythical creatures. The price we pay for drugs is ultimately set by whatever we're willing to pay for them. If the demand went down, the price would follow. Part of the reason for the high demand is that the industry spends about twice as much on marketing than it does on R&D. But on the demand side, because of the various subsidies we get from insurance or such things as Medicare, our personal cost 'seems' to be less...but really, all we're doing is using the shared risk system (whether govt or private) to pay those high costs with others' money (premiums or taxes). The way, KDD, to break this is to eliminate the subsidies. All of them. Let the open market work freely and eventually people will see competition between more-efficient businesses bring the prices down.

[Stosh]

Whatever is "actually" going to come of this will be a mess. IF, instead of spending the last three years trying to get rid of it we had studied the likely issues and changed things, while still holding to the supposed intent, then maybe we could be in a better position. Those who think the system worked before must live in a fantasy world. That we continue to be at the mercy of the Insurance Industry is the real problem. What makes our society different from most of the world is simply that we seem to think basic medical care is not enough. Much of what we insist we need is expensive and beyond most people's reach anyway. Prices have gone up exponentially "before" this particular fiasco. I was uninsured other than basic VA (fortunate in that regard) once I lost my job due to downsizing until Medicare kicked in. We also add to the problem by allowing the Lawyers to constantly hover and threaten, making doctors afraid to NOT do another test or treatment, even when they know it is not needed. Somehow you have to deal with the indigent who need basic care; right now that is through emergency centers. And since they have to treat, those of us that are more fortunate pay more.

 

So, all of you that keep screaming how terrible it is, please find an actual solution that is equitable to ALL. Some things are simply necessary, and dealing with them by taxes or similar government involvement is really the only way to be sure it happens. Take the profit motive out of the health industry and you have half the fix. Put limits back on the pharmaceutical industry such as no public advertising, and restricting their strangle hold on supply and costs go down. Let doctors be doctors, not paper pushers; and find a way to have family practitioners be the norm, rather than specialists.

 

Of course, all of this is just way too hard to do; it might require a little bit of "Common Sense". But of course that is no longer found in most of our public theater, and is quickly disappearing from even the average person's lives.

Economics 101 is based solely on supply and demand. Nobody's going to pay for something that costs way too much. They'll shop around. The price gougers will go out of business. With that being said, add into the mix sufficient governmental interfering and all the Laws of Supply and Demand go out the window. If a company can't make a product cheap enough to sell, they go out of business and the citizens end up with nothing. No big business, no market, no product, and no one to blame except the governmental interference. Government hoarding of product to influence markets has been going on in a number of areas, agriculture, energy, just to name a couple. The US Constitution does not allow governmental interference in private industries. Well, that isn't the case and the artificial economics that have arisen doesn't "protect" the public, it in fact harms it.

 

Stosh

[JoeBob]

Interesting numbers coming out today:

 

6 - Excited Obamacare devotees enrolled on the first day. 39,000 per day needed to reach critical mass.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57610328/obamacare-enrollments-got-off-to-very-slow-start-documents-show/

 

93,000,000 - CBO estimates that will have lose their Employer provided insurance in 2014, despite the prez promising otherwise:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/10/31/health-insurance-losses-to-get-worse-with-employer-mandate-looming-n1733796

 

 

 

[Stosh]

That's what you get when you don't read the fine print, or any print for that matter.

 

Stosh

[Rick_in_CA]

Interesting numbers coming out today:

 

6 - Excited Obamacare devotees enrolled on the first day. 39,000 per day needed to reach critical mass.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57610328/obamacare-enrollments-got-off-to-very-slow-start-documents-show/

 

93,000,000 - CBO estimates that will have lose their Employer provided insurance in 2014, despite the prez promising otherwise:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/10/31/health-insurance-losses-to-get-worse-with-employer-mandate-looming-n1733796

 

 

Actually that isn't what the report says. The townhall.com story talks about a Forbes story that talks about a commentary in the Federal Register (not a CBO report). The Forbes story provides a link to a pdf of the report itself so you can go an read it. What the report actually says, is it estimates that just over half (51 percent) of employers will CHANGE their offered help plans and so will not be grandfathered anymore. That is not the same as "loosing their insurance".

 

So we go from "51 percent will change their health plans" to "93 Million Americans Will Be Unable To Keep Their Health Plans Under Obamacare" to "Over half will loose their insurance!". Scare mongering anyone?

[Horizon]

There are only two simple ways to go in all this. We either have individuals making their own decisions and paying their own way with no shared risk, or else we share the risk (and the costs). We long ago made the decision to turn away from the free market approach and when I say 'we' I mean nearly every last one of us. We decided to have employers paying part of the premium. We decided to have HMOs. We decided to form any number of groups who share the risk, which also include Medicare and Medicaid. But WE also decided to exclude anyone who couldn't 'fit in' with the requirements to be part of one of those other groups and 'those' people are the ones that the ACA will bring into the shared risk.

 

I do get what is happening. What is happening is merely a logical extension of what we all decided to do a long time ago and that was NOT to have individuals take individual responsibility and accept the risks and costs for whatever life had for them. So Be It.

 

Anyone who is not ready to relinquish their employer contributions or their Medicare or their VA benefits or whatever other shared risk subsidy they have....tough luck. The real issue is that you like the benefits of shared risk that you receive and you don't want to apply that standard to others who are less fortunate because you don't want to pay more to share those added risks. I DO get it. Again, I advocate for abolition of employer contributions and all subsidized benefits like Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, or any other shared risk approach. Make a fair wage and pay a fair price for medical care IF you can afford it. If not, the market and life will make the correction.

packsaddle nails it. We (the nation) looked around and started changing how healthcare is dealt with. The Kaiser medical operation in California is great history. Kaiser was building dams, etc. They found it easier to hire some company doctors and provide onsite medical care for their workers. The workers had families with them, so Kaiser added that. At one point, Kaiser was going to stop providing that service - the workers went on Strike. Kaiser became experts at delivering medical care - and turned that into a business.

 

When Medicaid was launched in 1965, it RAISED the cost of medical care in many communities. While today it is known as a source of poor reimbursement rates (often barely at the cost of providing service), when launched the rates were HIGHER than what was charged in many communities. In response, physicians in those areas raised their prices to match Medicaid. Oops.

 

Finally, it is a fallacy to think of medicine as a market. To get that free market packsaddle describes we would also need to kill the AMA monopoly which keeps the numbers of doctors down in the US by limiting the number of residencies and medical schools.

[packsaddle]

There are only two simple ways to go in all this. We either have individuals making their own decisions and paying their own way with no shared risk, or else we share the risk (and the costs). We long ago made the decision to turn away from the free market approach and when I say 'we' I mean nearly every last one of us. We decided to have employers paying part of the premium. We decided to have HMOs. We decided to form any number of groups who share the risk, which also include Medicare and Medicaid. But WE also decided to exclude anyone who couldn't 'fit in' with the requirements to be part of one of those other groups and 'those' people are the ones that the ACA will bring into the shared risk.

 

I do get what is happening. What is happening is merely a logical extension of what we all decided to do a long time ago and that was NOT to have individuals take individual responsibility and accept the risks and costs for whatever life had for them. So Be It.

 

Anyone who is not ready to relinquish their employer contributions or their Medicare or their VA benefits or whatever other shared risk subsidy they have....tough luck. The real issue is that you like the benefits of shared risk that you receive and you don't want to apply that standard to others who are less fortunate because you don't want to pay more to share those added risks. I DO get it. Again, I advocate for abolition of employer contributions and all subsidized benefits like Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, or any other shared risk approach. Make a fair wage and pay a fair price for medical care IF you can afford it. If not, the market and life will make the correction.

Quite right, if the number of physicians was allowed to expand to meet demand, competition between them would bring down the costs. The insurance industry AND the doctors know this.

[JoeBob]

Interesting numbers coming out today:

 

6 - Excited Obamacare devotees enrolled on the first day. 39,000 per day needed to reach critical mass.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57610328/obamacare-enrollments-got-off-to-very-slow-start-documents-show/

 

93,000,000 - CBO estimates that will have lose their Employer provided insurance in 2014, despite the prez promising otherwise:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/10/31/health-insurance-losses-to-get-worse-with-employer-mandate-looming-n1733796

 

 

Rick: Lemme help you with the numbers:

 

“The Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013,†wrote the administration on page 34,552 of the Register. All in all, more than half of employer-sponsored plans will lose their “grandfather status†and get canceled. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 156 million Americansâ€â€more than half the populationâ€â€was covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2013."

 

51% of 156,000,000 = 79,560,000

 

"Another 25 million people, according to the CBO, have “nongroup and other†forms of insurance; that is to say, they participate in the market for individually-purchased insurance. In this market, the administration projected that “40 to 67 percent†of individually-purchased plans would lose their Obamacare-sanctioned “grandfather status†and get canceled, "

 

53.5% of 25,000,000 = 13,375,000

 

79,560,000 + 13,375,000 = 92,935,000. Is it scare mongering to round up to 93 million?

 

Not scare mongering, facing the fish (ACA) monger.

[Rick_in_CA]

Interesting numbers coming out today:

 

6 - Excited Obamacare devotees enrolled on the first day. 39,000 per day needed to reach critical mass.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57610328/obamacare-enrollments-got-off-to-very-slow-start-documents-show/

 

93,000,000 - CBO estimates that will have lose their Employer provided insurance in 2014, despite the prez promising otherwise:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/10/31/health-insurance-losses-to-get-worse-with-employer-mandate-looming-n1733796

 

 

You wrote: "93,000,000 - CBO estimates that will have lose their Employer provided insurance in 2014, despite the prez promising otherwise:". The report doesn't say that. Having your employer replacing the grandfathered health plan with a new one is not the same as "losing your employer provided insurance".

 

So yes, equating changing an insurance policy with "not having insurance" is scare mongering.