Any time a person with NO insurance gets care and can't pay...the ones who DO pay wind up footing the bill? The hospitals all have a plan for "indigent" care which means they write that bill off in the form of raising prices for us all. So why wouldn't you thinkit would be better to have eveyone pay their own way? Wouldn't that lower your costs? I have healthcare, always have , so no problem with me. But ,remarks like"that old witch can't shove her health care down my throat " are just very juvenile. I guess that means that you don't mind paying for susie pop-off to have seven "free" babies courtsey of you? so we can keep on paying for eveyone with no coverage? obama 's plan wants to give people $2500 to buy their own..where do you think that comes from?? Tax payers ..of course..so we still foot the bill!!! Well I don't make comments like that, but I am against any form of National Health. I do believe that we have to address insurance and medical cost concerns in this country, but creating large entitlements will not be less expensive than the current system. Further, no one can point to any country which has such a system that does not have higher tax burdens as a result.
One of the major arguments people like to use in this debate is the one you espouse here. This is that we are already paying for it. This is a true statement to be sure because it is passed along to the consumer in the form of higher costs. However, have you considered the fact that under the current system people without insurance go to the doctor when absolutely necessary. Under a National Health Plan many of these people would go to the doctor every time they get a slight case of the sniffles. This would not only dramatically increase your expected costs, but would also create even more backlog and longer wait times to see a physician than we already experience.
As for Hillary Clinton's plan. This is no plan at all. She wants to force everyone to carry insurance at an average rate of 115 dollars per month. Then she wants to set the deductible at 2500 per year. Now if you do the research you will find that the average person does not incur 2500 in medical expenses per year. So what does this mean to the consumer? It means that you will pay a signifigant portion of your yearly income in premiums which you will never see a dime of benefit from without experiencing catastrophic illness. Additionally, do you really expect that people who are unwilling to pay for insurance now are suddenly going to be willing to pay out their co-pays to meet the required deductible? Highly unlikely!
In the case of Obama's plan. Well all I can say is that if he thinks he can lower health care costs by 2500 for every American then he is going to have to prove exactly where this money and the savings will come from. To date he has provided only abritrary numbers without hard economic fact to back them.
Given these 2 choices, I think I will continue to support the status quo. The devil you know is usually better than the one you don't in the end.
Nibiru: Some wise suggestions there, but I would like to add something to them.
Eliminate Double Pricing Structures - Make it a crime for any hospital or doctor to charge more to an uninsured "out of pocket" patient for a procedue or test than the amount they are willing to accept for the same procedure from an insurance company.
Extend HSA Benefits - Remove the one year use it or lose it cap. Allow individuals to accumulate their HSAs on a yearly tax free rollover basis. This will allow people to establish true medical savings accounts to help offset their cost burden. Upon the death of an insured the survivor should be allowed to utilize unused funds for burial expenses. Just say, "NO!" to Hillary's Coercive Care Plan. What I don't understand is why people keep forgetting about medicare. I'm paying for that monthly to pay for healthcare for those who can't afford it.
Isn't that what Hilary wants? Me to pay for the dozen shmoes down the street that can't/won't get health insurance on their own?
EDIT: Hilary will garnish their checks to pay for it? Bullshit, that's not how an socialist operates. She'll garnish EVERYONE'S check and then dole it out as she sees fit.
The people who don't have health insurance either don't want it or can't pay for it. The "don't want it" crowd I'm cool with. It's the "can't pay for it" crowd that makes me want to padlock MY wallet. But the problem is there alot of americans who make just enough money to pay the car note, rent, groceries and gas. Forcing them to pay for a plan they have no room in there budget for is not fair to them. You can say your making it affordable but the word affordable is completely relative. Theres people who are toeing the line so close that they just cant pay it. So why would she force americans to pay for it?
On top of that we need to fix health insurance. The way they try to avoid paying things they should pay for is ridiculous. So forcing people to buy something that is only looking for the best way to rip them off isnt exactly fair.
I understand the paradox with people who lack health insurance costing the rest of americans. But the simple fact is until we make it a situation in which all americans can safely afford health insurance, I dont think it would be fair to make them pay for something they simply cant afford...... Have you ever done that? A friend of mine had no insurance and ended up with bone cancer--it already had gone into her glands. She had no insurance but property--and guess what? The hospital took everything from her: her house, her tools, her car.....it was horrible to me when I found out why. She had filed this "indigent" application--she got it all right, minus all her properties. She ended up driving by bus to Florida to stay with her son and died 1 year later because she could not afford any kind of treatment---and according to her family did she die in agonizing pain, again, because there was no treatment out there...and that's what you need to look at---I know another one who had a heart attack without insurance---over 100.000 dollars in medical bills for a woman who works in a convenience store--and if she files that application the hospital will go after her little property and not care that she would be destitute and a heart patient---those are the things that need to be looked at---because with health care for all hospitals cannot overcharge any longer--they also will be much better scrutinized. I got a bill the other day from the emergency room---supposedly I got a tetanus shot(which I never received)and got billed for that along with a couple of other things which I never got. I got medicare and medicaid, therefore could not care and let it slide--but I reported it. I do not see why hospitals charge a patient for stuff they didn't receive. They already charge high prices so why charge fraudulently? All these problems and a lot more of them will be fixed-maybe not right away, but they will be fixed because of government oversight of the billing procedures--and things like the 2 examples I mentioned here cannot happen to anyone no longer either.... Government run universal healthcare does not work, it leads to a erosion of the quality and access of care.
McCain has the right idea of peoplehaving more control and access to healthcare, using tax credits to help offset the cost of healthcare insurance... focusing on reducing costs, improving accesability.
The government should be there to help those, who are unable to help themselves....
Obama and Clinton want a government run plans, take a look at the state of healthcare in countries that have government run healthcare and make your own choice. The problem you describe does not have a current solution. The federal government mandates treatment for people who cannot pay. But it is not funded.
The answer is less government regulation. No one should force doctors or hospitals to treat anyone. People who do not pay should not be given the right to walk away from their obligations. The federal government decided long ago that it knew how to manage your health care better than you and replaced personal responsibility and accountability with a system that puts corporate interests first. Our free market health care system that was once the envy of the world became a federally-managed disaster.
Few people realize that Congress forced Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) on us. HMOs rose to prominence through federal legislation, incentives, and coercion.
Now, the Food and Drug Administration's bias toward large pharmaceutical companies enlarges their power, limits treatment options, and drives consumers to seek Canadian medicines. Regulations from D.C. make it virtually impossible for small business owners to cover their employees. Thanks to government interference in the health care market, many Americans, including the unemployed and those who work for small businesses, cannot afford health insurance. This causes the uninsured to seek basic medical care at already overcrowded emergency rooms, further driving up health care costs and causing premiums to rise for those with insurance.
The federal government will not suddenly become efficient managers if universal health care is instituted. Government health care only means long waiting periods, lack of choice, poor quality, and frustration. Many Canadians, fed up with socialized medicine, come to the U.S. in order to obtain care. Socialized medicine will not magically work here.
Health care should not be left up to HMOs, big drug companies, and government bureaucrats.
It is time to take back our health care. This is why I support:
Making all medical expenses tax deductible.
Eliminating federal regulations that discourage small businesses from providing coverage.
Giving doctors the freedom to collectively negotiate with insurance companies and drive down the cost of medical care.
Making every American eligible for a Health Savings Account (HSA), and removing the requirement that individuals must obtain a high-deductible insurance policy before opening an HSA.
Reform licensure requirements so that pharmacists and nurses can perform some basic functions to increase access to care and lower costs.
Only by removing federal regulations, encouraging competition, presenting real choices, dealing with inflation, and returning to a sound monetary policy can we make our health care system the envy of the world once again. No, it will not lower costs, and the law says as long as hospitals have emergency rooms they MUST accept indigents. The cost is so high that emergency rooms are closing in many hospitals!
These people are billed, and if they don't pay the hospitals and doctors are stuck with the bills!
The Universal plan will be a very high cost to everyone with the sacrifice of quality health care. Learn the lesson from Britain, France and Germany who are dismantling their universal plans because the cost is unperceived.
The Europeans have run into a very simple economic rule. If something is perceived as free, people will consume more of it than if they had to pay for it themselves.
Think of it this way: If groceries were free, would you buy steak or bologna? At the same time, health care is a finite good. There are only so many doctors and so many hospital beds and so much technology. When people over use these services, costs rise, and as in Europe benefits are slashed.
This also means the government will dictate to you what services you may have. Need I mention that less people will go into the profession? What incentives would they have?
VA Hospitals are pitiful and so is every other program managed by the government.
Leave health care to the free enterprise system where they are making reforms without government interference.
~ So you just want to see people dying in the streets, which is pretty much what would happen without some kind of health care system to help people who are not as fortunate as some of us. Closest thing to Hillarycare right now is Romney's plan in Taxachusetts.
Do you know that courtesy of that fix that in 2008 health care costs for the 6.5 million who live there will be UP $400 million?
"Massachusetts announced that spending on its health care plan would increase by $400 million in 2008, a cost expected to be borne largely by taxpayers. "
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/200...
Last modified: January 29. 2008 5:03AM
That came from the news article explaining that California was not able to make UHC work:
"California Senate Panel Rejects Health Coverage Proposal
JESSE MCKINLEY AND KEVIN SACK
SAN FRANCISCO 鈥?In a blow to universal health care coverage in California and possibly to its prospects nationwide, a State Senate committee on Monday rejected a sweeping plan by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that would have offered insurance to millions of uninsured residents.
The Senate Health Committee defeated the plan 7 to 1, with three abstentions, as Democrats and Republicans alike said they found it too nebulous and potentially too costly for a state facing a $14.5 billion deficit.
鈥淭his bill is not only not perfect, it is flawed,鈥?said State Senator Sheila James Kuehl, Democrat of Los Angeles and chairwoman of the committee, who voted against it.
...
But last Wednesday, as the California Senate committee heard testimony on the bill, Massachusetts announced that spending on its health care plan would increase by $400 million in 2008, a cost expected to be borne largely by taxpayers.
Shortly after the vote, Assemblyman Michael N. Villines of Fresno, the chamber鈥檚 Republican leader, praised it as a rejection of 鈥渁 massive government-run health care scheme.鈥?
On the Democratic side, there were concerns about the so-called 鈥渋ndividual mandate,鈥?which would have required all Californians to carry and pay for insurance, except those in economic hardship...."
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/200...
Last modified: January 29. 2008 5:03AM
Nothing odd about that as UHC doesn't work anywhere--results in rationed care and bankruptcy. From a Canadian doc, now living in the US, who studies world health issues:
""...Another sign of transformation: Canadian doctors, long silent on the health-care system鈥檚 problems, are starting to speak up. Last August, they voted Brian Day president of their national association. A former socialist who counts Fidel Castro as a personal acquaintance, Day has nevertheless become perhaps the most vocal critic of Canadian public health care, having opened his own private surgery center as a remedy for long waiting lists and then challenged the government to shut him down. 鈥淭his is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week,鈥?he fumed to the New York Times, 鈥渁nd in which humans can wait two to three years.鈥?br>
And now even Canadian governments are looking to the private sector to shrink the waiting lists. Day鈥檚 clinic, for instance, handles workers鈥?compensation cases for employees of both public and private corporations. In British Columbia, private clinics perform roughly 80 percent of government-funded diagnostic testing. In Ontario, where fealty to socialized medicine has always been strong, the government recently hired a private firm to staff a rural hospital鈥檚 emergency room.
This privatizing trend is reaching Europe, too. Britain鈥檚 government-run health care dates back to the 1940s. Yet the Labour Party鈥攚hich originally created the National Health Service and used to bristle at the suggestion of private medicine, dismissing it as 鈥淎mericanization鈥濃€攏ow openly favors privatization. Sir William Wells, a senior British health official, recently said: 鈥淭he big trouble with a state monopoly is that it builds in massive inefficiencies and inward-looking culture.鈥?Last year, the private sector provided about 5 percent of Britain鈥檚 nonemergency procedures; Labour aims to triple that percentage by 2008. The Labour government also works to voucherize certain surgeries, offering patients a choice of four providers, at least one private. And in a recent move, the government will contract out some primary care services, perhaps to American firms such as UnitedHealth Group and Kaiser Permanente.
Sweden鈥檚 government, after the completion of the latest round of privatizations, will be contracting out some 80 percent of Stockholm鈥檚 primary care and 40 percent of its total health services, including one of the city鈥檚 largest hospitals. Since the fall of Communism, Slovakia has looked to liberalize its state-run system, introducing co-payments and privatizations. And modest market reforms have begun in Germany: increasing co-pays, enhancing insurance competition, and turning state enterprises over to the private sector (within a decade, only a minority of German hospitals will remain under state control). It鈥檚 important to note that change in these countries is slow and gradual鈥攎arket reforms remain controversial. But if the United States was once the exception for viewing a vibrant private sector in health care as essential, it is so no longer."
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_ca...
How about a sensible plan instead?
QUALITY, ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE health care for all.
That means preventative care (physical with follow up). Real medication (no Medicare "donut holes" the really ill are ripped off again.) No bogus ridiculously low "caps" on needed medical procedures. No abuse of the ER. No paying for the silly with the sniffles to go to the doc for free. No more bankruptcies over medical bills. I want THIS plan that ends abuse of the taxpayer, takes the burden off employers, provides price transparency, and ends the rip-off of the US taxpayer at the hands of greedy insurance CEOs (which has been repeatedly documented).
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm...
Read the PDF, not the blurb, for the bulk of the plan. Book is searchable on Amazon.com
Cassandra Nathan's Save America, Save the World Somehow we need to have privatized health insurance. The pharmaceutical companies and the insurance co. are making money hand over fist. Along with the illegals taking a big part of the pie while we pay. I would be more than happy to pay for ins. if they could just make it reasonable. If you look at any EOB the price say the doctor charges and the price contracted by the ins.co. is a big difference. Back in the day one would go to the doctor and pay the doctor. Now if you do not have ins. the doctor will not see you. It is a mess and we need to get back to having morals rather then GREED. AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!
****Hillary 2008****
Vetted, Tested & Ready on Day One
No training necessary! Personally, I like Obama's helathcare plan, he understands the words "choice" and liberty. |
