Holy Shit! Something we can agree on luci…
Of course they aren’t going to run at a deficit, they will raise taxes…
UPS and Fed EX do some job(s) better than the USPS or they wouldn’t be in business… I am not one proposing that private insurance will be done away with. I just think it will be the rich who receive better care than us regular old Joe’s (who happen to have no much else choice but go to the government)
If you need to mail a letter than can be somewhere in 4 days you don’t use UPS…
Well that’s the whole point, isn’t it? The postal service is basic service. If you don’t care about the delivery date or don’t have a lot of large packages, USPS does the job fine. On the other hand, if it absolutely has to be there overnight, you’re not going to get that kind of service with a 42 cent stamp. That’s when you pay Fedex $20 to haul ass.
A public option would be a basic level of care. You want better quality care, you’re gonna have to pay more on a private insurer. Yes, the rich would have better care than regular Joes. That’s fine, and I don’t think anyone not far to the left is disputing that. The whole point of this exercise is so that regular Joes will not have to go without any kind of care at all, or will not have to be tied to their employer just for healthcare. Employers can still offer an attractive health insurance package as a benefit, and it will ideally still be as effective a benefit as it is now. But it shouldn’t be a mandatory thing to have to rely on your employer for.
Newsflash: the rich already receive better care than the not-rich already. Kinda easy to have that happen with so many of the not-rich are uninsured or underinsured.
Well, again the conservative argument would say, that the Government will offer the UHC at a rate far below what a private insurance company can compete at, due to the $1T (or more if you listen to talk radio) being added to the federal debt, a number which is already going to crush the economy of my kids, even if nothing is added to it (IMHO).
Will it be as ‘good’ as private healthcare? Depends on your take I guess. If you are anti-gov all the time and cynical, you’ll say that the government rarely delivers services as efficient or user-friendly as the private marketplace. However I fully acknowledge the other side as well, that private healthcare companies have a vested interest in denying coverage when it’s not warranted (although I doubt that happens as much as some on this board claim, anectdotally) as a means of squeaking out a profit.
And I do mean squeak. I know how this board tilts, having been a lurker forever. However, the profit margins of the private companies are not as high as some suggest. The profit from last year’s top 5 largest healthcare companies, last year:
UHC did a profit of of $2.9b on a rev of $81.1b
Wellpoint did a profit of $2.4b on a rev of $61.2b
Aetna, $1.3b on $30.9b
Humana, $647m on $28.9b
Cigna, $292m on $19.1b
That’s profit margins of 3.5%, 3.9%, 4%, 2.2%, and 1.5% respectively. Hardly confiscatory, again in my opinion. And don’t forget they paid taxes on those profits.
I don’t have a link, sry, I got those numbers from a relative who is high up in AARP, who recently backed this bill, and it came from their talking points he emailed me.
You completely disregarded the first sentence though. If this fails how will they fix it?
Peter/Paul v 2.0?
If you give people an option of free healthcare for all or better healthcare at a certain price, the people will only want the better care when they actually really really need it no?
When will all the governmental officials whom voted for this bill be joining the plan?
This is most certainly the strongest argument I’ve seen for why privat healthcare will not be driven out of business by a public option. And I certainly hope it plays out that way: you could argue that SS might have driven pension plans and 401ks out of business with the same logic; the fact that they didn’t suggests that there’s some hope for increased healthcare choice being offered to new prospects as a means of recruiting the best and the brightest.
However the blue collar, lower paid folks might get screwed. They are already largely viewed as expendable/interchangable by industry, and may (probably?) get shunted to the Govie option, with no private healthcare choice. I work for a gov contractor that does mostly call center work. This work is largely viewed as a commodity, and is fiercely cost competitive. Some of us are true knowledge workers, but most are low-level CSRs. Can they maintain a 2-tier system for benefits? Not sure that would fly.
Peter has been paying for Paul since progressive taxes were implemented. This really isn’t anything different.
As for people who will decide the public option’s good enough for them, well, why not? I don’t think I’ve ever had to ship something via Fedex in my life, the USPS has always sufficed. And sure, there will always be people lazy enough to try to live off welfare and the government without being productive members of society, but that’s an acceptable price to ensure productive members aren’t screwed. Same reason I’d rather see a guilty man go free than an innocent man sentenced.
And it still wouldn’t change the fact that private insurance will be better. If I have two job offers roughly the same, and one offers a good healthcare package while the other blows it off in favor of the public option, that package is gonna look pretty nice.
The rich already receive better care than the regular Joe. The only difference is, under the current system, the regular Joe has no alternative. At least with the public option, they have a choice. Why would you think having no insurance is better than having government insurance?
Much as I love me some socialized medicine (and I would really prefer it to anything that has a hope of passing Congress), I have to point out that you are wrong. Not only that, you are wrong because you have been listening to Republican fairy stories and believing them. You only have a right to emergency care. It is not free; they will send you a bill. If you don’t pay it, it will be referred to a collections agency. The only people who receive free emergency care are those who care nothing for their credit rating.
Also, non-emergency care, even if it is necessary to save your life, does not have to be provided. You have no right to chemotherapy, for example.
Am I the only one who thinks that having great health care in this country is kind of meaningless when it is available to those with insurance? Do we really need Rolls Royces, when everyone could get by on a civic and if someone wanted something else well they can trade it is?
Yes, we have agreat health care system but not everyone has access to it. That’s the problem.
And it is pretty disgusting that we have this problem when we are so prosperous.
We have public options in education, mail delivery, etc. Why is this so hard?
Simple. Scrap the whole insurance-for-profit model, and go directly to single-payer. Sooner the better, IMHO.
Wait. Scratch that last bit. I don’t claim there’s anything humble about it.
In fact, I reject the notion that it’s an opinion.
So: Sooner the better [del]IMHO[/del], in point of FACT.
I do not think the federal government should have any involvement in healthcare. This includes Medicare and Medicaid.
Forward, then, into the past!
Perhaps a little off topic, but I’d like to know what 'dopers think.
I see the argument come up time and again that Medicare is losing money, Social Security is losing money, therefore a public health option can do nothing but fail. Because that’s gov’ment for ya!
But- isn’t the reason MC and SS are having trouble is because of the demographic bubble? We have an aging population and more and more demand for these services. Basic math, not really government incompetence. And the demographic bubble traces back to Hitler not being able to keep his tanks out of Poland instead of in his pants where they belonged. Again, not really the government’s fault.
Is that wrong? I’d rather straighten out my views with good info than pretend to be a genius.
Except for the fact that the government should have foreseen this.
At that, we are deep into fundamentalist conservatism, here, with an emphasis on “mental”. The premise is that any endeavor, regardless, will prosper under a free enterprise and will invariably fail if a government entity does it.
Its kinda like if NASA had completed the moon mission as a General Dynamic/Lockheed project, and then suddenly the paychecks were being issued by the government, even if everybody and everything else remained the same, the launch tower would burn up, fall down and sink into the swamp.
I just wanted to use the phrase ‘tanks in his pants’, sorry.
Point is, no WWII, then no post-war baby boom, then no demographic bubble. Doesn’t that make more sense?
I see. Well, there would still be people in their 50’s or older…maybe not as many, but I think no baby boom would only delay the problem, not eliminate it.
A fair point, but then, isn’t attempting to do something about this now, if belatedly, also part of the UHC program?