Obamacare to the Rescue

B_Jingoist

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They won't get dropped NOW, thanks to the healthcare law. Previously nearly every company had a lifetime maximum benefit, I think usually it was $1M per policy-which would include a whole family. If you unfortunately reached that limit then you were dropped because you maxed out benefits.

And that is part of the contract. It is something they knew about when they bought the policy. But $1 million is a lot. I can guarantee that family didn't pay anywhere near that in payments.

That was a Republican idea that first came about in the early/mid 90's. Either buy health insurance or pay a tax if you didn't.

I don't really care where it came from. I don't like it.
 

B_Jingoist

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Are you incapable of doing your own research? :eek:



I don't want to pay for the largest military on the planet and indeed the largest the world has ever known but what choice do I have? I don't have kids but I have to pay for schools. What choice do I have? I never call the police but I have to pay for them. What choice do I have? I never call the fire department but I have to pay for them. What choice do I have? I never use 97% of the roads in my county but I have to pay for them. What choice do I have?

Those are COMPLETELY different things. And you do in fact benefit from EVERY single one of those things.

You wouldn't have what you have today if it wasn't for the military (You wouldn't have the internet for one to tell me you don't like the military). The police arrest criminals so they don't kill you. The fire department puts out fires two blocks down so it doesn't spread to your house. And those roads are used by trucks, that transport goods to stores you do drive to.

Oh, and those things are all governmental obligations outlined in The Constitution. Healthcare is not.
 

FuzzyKen

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A poster asked the question as to why "he" should pay for others and he rightfully in his own mind placed his own family first.

This same exact question was asked in the Michael Moore movie "Sicko" which talks rather heavily about the problem. It does not really matter if we like Michael Moore or not. I am not particularly fond of his films either, but, they do provoke thought and thought is the good part.

The reason you pay for the other guy is very simple:

Because he pays for you and your family.

I have a kid that is the age of this poster who was told by his dentist to brush many times per day and to use alcohol based mouthwash because it was "great" and it would kill all that nasty bacteria.

Junior, this resulted in cancer of the tongue. This same incompetent dentist delayed the treatment insisting that the cancer was a 3 month old canker sore. He refused to refer and authorize for an extended period. My kid is alive and well because of a great surgeon. Our percentage of this year long ordeal was incredible and we had insurance. Because of this cancer diagnosis my young friend my kid will not be able to get medical insurance.

We have many friends around the world. We have friends in Canada, the U.K., France, and in several South American countries. No care system is perfect, but as of right now all of these people get far better care than we do.

Problems in health care are multi layered and there is no simple answer. Right now the problems stem mainly from a pack of foxes being given the job of watching all the hen houses.

The insurance companies only want to insure healthy people and if you get sick they become less and less friendly or helpful.

The major drug companies rush drugs to market at very quick rates these days because the guys running the FDA drug approval are all former employees of these same companies. Good? Who cares. . . .Let it make a profit and we will look like good guys when we pull it after a number of people die a few years down the road.

We have incredible equipment and diagnostic techniques available here in the United States but the Insurance Companies simply refuse to pay for it's usage as a general rule.

My family came from the medical business and what it has become is an absolute cesspool of problems. There is not one problem, but instead problems layered like a 3 dimensional chess board.

Personally, I am not really fond of what has come to be known as "socialized medicine" simply because it becomes a huge cumbersome slow responding bureaucracy. The problem is that right now the only way to "clean house" and fix the care problems is to scrap the entire existing system and do something else even if it is temporarily.

The United States has "Medicare" for seniors and that system can just be expanded to cover everyone through payroll deductions.

One of the largest complaints has been that this would create great inequity between care systems. In all reality if everyone in this country including the United States Congress and the United States Senate were covered under this plan without choice, how long do you think the plan would be a mess? I can guarantee you that there would be the hardest working bunch of political hacks we have ever seen. The reason that we don't get greatness is simply because those making the decisions have such high income levels that it does not impact them personally. Greatness for us, mediocrity for the masses if we care at all.

The system and plan that was passed is a disaster. The reason that the GOP wants to get rid of it so badly has nothing to do with that. The GOP knows well the history of medicine and medical care plans in this country. The plan that was passed can now be revised and improved over time to do what it needs to do and "gulp" it is a basic framework for "again gulp" even socialized medicine. They want it gone because it could take profit away from some very powerful political donors that have shoved incredible sums of money into various conservative campaigns.

These men and woman do not give a hoot about what you pay and what is compulsory or not. What they care about is what can be done with what remains. To protect their biggest contributors they need destroy any framework that could be revised into a plan to interfere with the profits of the corporations be they insurance or pharmaceutical or even direct medicine. Right now the existing framework in essence forces contracts with major insurers with the only real liability for the insurers being pre-existing conditions. Why are the insurance companies screaming? It is not for "our" rights of choice, it is for the dismantling of that framework that could give them competition OR even worse the potential of auditors coming in with their calculators coming in and finding things that just maybe they wouldn't like.

The greatest complainers on this are those who have never been personally impacted by the decisions and imploding health care system.

All of this is a sad statement of the turn of events taking hold and compromising one of the greatest countries the world has ever seen.
 

B_enzia35

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Bullshit. Competition in health care has never worked and never will work. There is no money no profit in insuring sick people. Just like there is no money involved in insuring dangerous drivers and no company will no matter how many are out there will insure people who make a lot of claims due to illness in the case of health care or bad driving in the case of car insurance.


Why markets can’t cure healthcare

Didn't John Stossel say that eye and plastic surgery has gotten cheaper BECAUSE of competition? These two categories aren't paid for by insurance, they're elective.
 

gymfresh

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Preamble of the Constitution of the United States:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

You don't promote the general welfare by having no social programs or policies and staying completely out of people's lives. The general welfare means just that, setting standards for the condition in which citizens live, using the resources of an increasingly prosperous nation to improve health, education and safety.

No one gets a free ride to occupy some of this country without contributing to the general welfare (i.e., we're all in this together), actively and passively. You don't get to isolate yourself and deem you're "only gonna take care of your own". What a shithole that would turn into. It simply doesn't work that way. To fold your arms as millions suffer because of hardship caused by medical expenses is selfish, cruel and unpatriotic.

It is the role of government, from your taxes and mine, to ensure that every citizen has access to decent medical care at a manageable cost. It makes sense from a public health standpoint (preventing outbreaks), from a business productivity standpoint (so people stay focused on their jobs and not on medical bills they can't pay), and most importantly from a moral standpoint. The collective conscience of the developed world has evolved to understand basic healthcare as a human right.

Anyone from Europe, Canada or Australasia care to chime in?
 

B_Jingoist

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Preamble of the Constitution of the United States:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

You don't promote the general welfare by having no social programs or policies and staying completely out of people's lives. The general welfare means just that, setting standards for the condition in which citizens live, using the resources of an increasingly prosperous nation to improve health, education and safety.

No one gets a free ride to occupy some of this country without contributing to the general welfare (i.e., we're all in this together), actively and passively. You don't get to isolate yourself and deem you're "only gonna take care of your own". What a shithole that would turn into. It simply doesn't work that way. To fold your arms as millions suffer because of hardship caused by medical expenses is selfish, cruel and unpatriotic.

It is the role of government, from your taxes and mine, to ensure that every citizen has access to decent medical care at a manageable cost. It makes sense from a public health standpoint (preventing outbreaks), from a business productivity standpoint (so people stay focused on their jobs and not on medical bills they can't pay), and most importantly from a moral standpoint. The collective conscience of the developed world has evolved to understand basic healthcare as a human right.

Anyone from Europe, Canada or Australasia care to chime in?

The key word is promote, not provide. See how it says provide for the common defense? But not provide general welfare. Words are important.

And you have this idea that if people are given a choice, they will choose not to pay. Well that is wrong.

Do you have a museum near you that doesn't charger admission? Go there, watch people entering and see how many people CHOOSE to pay even though it isn't required. All museums that have gone to voluntary payment have seen huge increases in paid entry. Given the choice, most people will pay and often they will pay more than what they would otherwise be forced to pay. Another example is 15-18% mandatory tip added to parties of 8 or more at restaurants. I tip 20%. They just lost money by forcing me to tip.

But government run healthcare isn't going to fix a damn thing. I've seen it in action, I see it everyday. It is barely better than nothing.

Some countries, like Switzerland or Germany have good ideas. Everything is private. Private insurance, private hospitals, private doctors. And these insurance companies have to give everyone the same minimum coverage.

And that minimum coverage is what most people here don't understand. Most people in these countries spend more money to get better coverage and on top of that they still pay for part of the cost of treatment. Its like the commercials on tv for state minimum coverage on car insurance. It is very minimum.

The insurance companies in Switzerland have to compete with each other. So the consumer decides what they want they aren't forced into it and the Swiss government spends less than 3% of their GDP on healthcare.

The only issue is that the government defines what should be minimum coverage.
 

FuzzyKen

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Didn't John Stossel say that eye and plastic surgery has gotten cheaper BECAUSE of competition? These two categories aren't paid for by insurance, they're elective.

This is quite true, and the fact that they are elective surgery does make for competition. At the same time that emergency surgery to remove a hot appendix was not elective surgery. You were in emergency and had to do it, nor was that heart attack, it wasn't your choice either and you were not given the right to "shop" for price and what you wanted.

There are many medical practices currently that give a discount to cash customers who pay up front. They then submit the insurance and the payment or repayment is assigned to you the patient.

Why is this done? It is done because many insurance carriers hold up payments to MD's for months.

Right now, I am paying cash to a local medical clinic for my present care. The office visits I need are in fact lower than what the insurance payments would be by far. The problem is that the Rx's are of course outrageous.

There are places where competition would help and places where it won't work because of the way the system is currently operating.

If the FEDS opened up foreign made prescription drugs approved by the World Health Organization as good and safe to the American Market, drug costs could be cut by as much as 80% for some medications. The soft money paid by the major pharmaceutical companies in this country has stopped all far competition and raised the prices of drugs exponentially to all of us.

There are many good foreign manufacturers making drugs of equivalent quality to our own. American drug manufacturers have successfully kept them out citing safety issues. Amazing, they are safe enough for Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and many other civilized countries, but they are toxic to Americans and not safe enough.

At the same time we have a medication out there marketed by these same benevolent corporations for plaque psoriasis that can cause hon-hodgkins lymphoma cancer.

As the saying goes:

(Two women standing over a casket and talking at a funeral.)

"Gee Ellen, it is terrible she died of non-hodgkins lymphoma cancer, the family lost their home, and they will be in debt for years." "She had so many problems with the chemotherapy and the radiation was terrible when the cancer got near her heart." "She was so sick!"

"I know Margaret, but isn't her skin beautiful?"
 
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deleted15807

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Those are COMPLETELY different things. And you do in fact benefit from EVERY single one of those things.

You wouldn't have what you have today if it wasn't for the military (You wouldn't have the internet for one to tell me you don't like the military). The police arrest criminals so they don't kill you. The fire department puts out fires two blocks down so it doesn't spread to your house. And those roads are used by trucks, that transport goods to stores you do drive to.

Oh, and those things are all governmental obligations outlined in The Constitution. Healthcare is not.

Really? The fire department is outlined in the Constitution? Can you point that out to me. If a fire happens I will put it out myself and if I die SO WHAT it's MY CHOICE. And what about public education? I don't see that in the Constitution.

And I don't care about those 'roads used by trucks to stores'. I live in the woods and hunt my own food. I shouldn't have to pay for roads I don't use. And the library why should I pay for that? I don't use it. I have no choice.
 
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ColonialBoy

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Research and Development. Americans spend the money developing drugs, techniques, procedures and new machines. It happens here because it is profitable. It isn't profitable anywhere else. You socialize our medical system and new medical advances will slow or disappear.

Australia does a lot of medical research for a small country.
And in Australia people makes $20 in a minimum wage job and it costs them $40 for a case of Coke. And no other western nation has a standard of living as high as that of the US. Spending $40k on a car here is normal. In England anything over $25k is expensive.

In about 10 years the Australian GDP per Capita will exceed the US, essentially because we dont have a banking and budget crisis.
Australia, United States - GDP - per capita (PPP) - Historical Data Graphs per Year

That's with $15 per hour minimum wage and national health insurance. The US must come to understand how things have been going backwards for decades.
 
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deleted15807

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Many doctors and hospitals don't take medicare of medicaid right now because there is a good chance they won't get paid and the hassle they have to go through to work with it ends up being a huge hassle. It is bloated government bureaucracy.

More bullshit.
According to the Urban Institute's Marilyn Moon, who testified before the Senate Committee on Aging, Medicare expenditures between 1970 and 2000 grew more slowly than those of the private sector. Initially, from 1965 through the 1980s, Medicare and private insurance costs doubled in tandem. Then Medicare tightened up, and per capita expenditures grew more slowly than private insurance, creating a significant gap. In the 1990s, private insurers got more serious about controlling their costs, and the gap narrowed. But by 2000, Medicare per capita expenditures remained significantly lower than the private sector.

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

 

Calboner

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Some countries, like Switzerland or Germany have good ideas. Everything is private. Private insurance, private hospitals, private doctors. And these insurance companies have to give everyone the same minimum coverage.
Private but NON-PROFIT. Quite a difference from what "private" means in health care in the US.
 

rob_just_rob

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Preamble of the Constitution of the United States:

Not to imply that I disagree with the rest of your post, but isn't it a little crazy to rely on a 230+ year old document when deciding what your government can or can't do?

230 years ago, life expectancy was something like 40-50 years at birth. The concept of hospitals and scientific medicine as we know it was virtually non-existent. Accident and health insurance were new ideas. There's absolutely no way the framers of your constitution were considering concepts like the internet, genetic engineering, surveillance satellites and modern medical treatment techniques when they sat down with quill and ink to draft a constitution by lamplight in their wood-or-coal heated residences.


Anyone from Europe, Canada or Australasia care to chime in?

You're welcome.
 
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B_Jingoist

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Really? The fire department is outlined in the Constitution? Can you point that out to me. If a fire happens I will put it out myself and if I die SO WHAT it's MY CHOICE. And what about public education? I don't see that in the Constitution.

And I don't care about those 'roads used by trucks to stores'. I live in the woods and hunt my own food. I shouldn't have to pay for roads I don't use. And the library why should I pay for that? I don't use it. I have no choice.

The 10th amendment. Fire departments, librarys, schools all that good stuff is controlled at the state level and falls under the 10th amendment.

None of those are socialist. It is the government utilizing their granted powers. Checks and Balances.

I don't have a problem with the federal government using its rights outlined in the Constitution. I also don't have a problem with state and local governments enacting laws and regulations tailored to their locality. I do have a problem with the Federal government trying to take over things they have no Constitutional right to do and intruding on the states 10th amendment rights.
 
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deleted15807

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The 10th amendment. Fire departments, librarys, schools all that good stuff is controlled at the state level and falls under the 10th amendment.

That's not really what the 10th amendment states. It just grants the right for the state to do it. And it's 'good stuff' by whose definition? Why are schools good stuff and health insurance isn't?
 

B_Jingoist

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That's not really what the 10th amendment states. It just grants the right for the state to do it. And it's 'good stuff' by whose definition? Why are schools good stuff and health insurance isn't?

Those things are EXACTLY what the 10th amendment is for. It doesn't have to state it specifically, that is why they call them implied powers. And because states have the 10th amendment behind them they are not required to follow federal laws or regulations which are not based on the constitution. Several states, under the 10th amendment have already passed laws saying they will opt out of any Federal universal health care laws.

This is 8th grade civics class level stuff.

Those are good because they are necessary intrusions required for a free and safe society. The other obvious reason is because those industries are not profitable for private industry to take over. The government provides services the private sector cannot. Health Insurance is completely profitable and the private sector has no problem handling it.
 

B_Jingoist

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Private but NON-PROFIT. Quite a difference from what "private" means in health care in the US.

They cannot make a profit on the minimum plans required by law. But they can make a profit on advanced coverage plans. Which more than half the populations of those countries purchase.
 
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deleted15807

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Health Insurance is completely profitable and the private sector has no problem handling it.

Uhh yes they do. If they didn't they would cover EVERYONE for life. And its why government should take over the entire industry and use Medicare to cover all citizens. And why isn't health insurance for all 'good stuff'?
 
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B_Jingoist

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Uhh yes they do. If they didn't they would cover EVERYONE for life. And its why government should take over the entire industry and use Medicare to cover all citizens. And why isn't health insurance for all 'good stuff'?

Covering everyone for life wouldn't be profitable. And if the Federal government takes it over it WILL fail. That isn't within the power of the Federal government. The states would be well with their rights to opt out and ignore any federal healthcare system put in place.

There are a lot of things that may be 'good', but they aren't the right or legal thing to do. When you start ignoring the Constitution and the law you end up in bad places.