Mods?
To the OP: Medicare was successful largely due to it being a simple, easy-to-understand proposal: health care assistance for the elderly. It’s now four decades on and has the power of inertia behind its public support.
Obamacare, health care reform, or whatever label is given to the current debate has not been encapsulated into a simple proposal and suffers from the lack of focus Medicare enjoys.
Medicare only gets the old, the frail or the least money making demographic. Any body who is not likely to get sick ,can get insurance. But ,if you get into an age range where you are less profitable , the insurance company will drop you or charge you so much you can not afford to buy it. Medicare is the insurer of last resort.
If we had universal Medicare we would also have healthier people who would be less likely to use the system and it would be more profitable. I went 30 years without going to a doctor. They did not drop my premiums at work. But the insurance companies did charge more and more and provide less coverage on an ongoing basis. Medicare offers preventative medicine. They send you an email telling you what tests you are able to take. They stress prevention. Insurance companies fight any test they can possible escape paying for. Your health is not part of the equation. It is all about profit.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying, here.
Imagine a dose of government spending that does, in fact, get the job done: a project that really does build several atom bombs, or a program that actually puts a man on the moon, or whatever. Even the staunchest right-winger is quick to point out two or three instances that, in this sense, don’t suck.
What “we have been told” is merely that a government program won’t typically get as much bang for each buck as a private-sector corporation in the same line, which I guess involves a relative suckitude – but so long as the government spends enough bucks, that’s irrelevant to absolute suckitude. It’s like the view a lot of people have about Grant beating Lee: so what if he loses three men for every one his guys drop? As long as he starts off with five times as many soldiers, he can do a comparatively sucky job but still not suck at getting the win.
You going to tell on us?
I honestly don’t know how to answer his question about the logistics of the debate w/o getting into the fact that there is very blatant hypocrisy on the issue. The reality, again, is that many of the people screaming the loudest against government run health care (republican politicians, people over 65) already use it. That is a fact.
Do I understand you correctly as saying that, under Obamacare, the government is forbidden to raise taxes? Because if that is what you are saying, I am afraid I need a cite. Because Medicare is expected to become become insolvent rather soon, and I don’t see any indications that they won’t raise taxes to cover that too.
But the fact that Medicare has outrun its projected cost by a factor of almost ten is another reason why people are suspicious of further involvement in taxpayer-funded health care.
Regards,
Shodan
But they do fund this insurance system well enough through effective monopolies, duopolies and cartels.
Of course not. The average lifespan for Americans is only just over 78 years not 100 (even in the UK the average is less than a year longer at 79), so they’re thinking in terms of medicare covering the last sixth of their life, not a third. Obviously it’s less expensive at half the time.
That’s a fair point, but the last year or so of life is medically the most expensive. Cite.
Regards,
Shodan
But that’s not hypocrisy.
I don’t know how much longer we can talk about the debate without this straying into GD or even BBQ territory, but: imagine people who (a) wouldn’t have chosen to pay in for all those years, and who (b) even now would rather just have their money handed back instead of receiving government benefits. People like that don’t have any such option; they had to pony up the money, and now all they can get back are the benefits.
It’s not hypocrisy for someone like that to scream against such a program while still accepting the benefits. Not if they’d genuinely prefer a refund.
You never know. I suppose you will never get in an accident or get a serious illness, but it happens. If you are depending on private insurance you can get some very unpleasant surprises.
Today a story is out that if a husband abuses his wife. it is considered a pre-existing condition and a basis for fighting payments. They simply decide by themselves .
The above has nothing to do with Medicare.
Statistically speaking, the last year of life is medically the most expensive, rivalled only by the first year of life (cite). Old people are the hardest to insure, because they cost a lot more to cover than young, healthy people (cite).
If Obamacare is like Medicare, it will cost almost ten times more than projected, and run out of money just when the largest number of people will start to depend on it. Just like baby boomers are looking forward to Medicare and it is shortly to become insolvent.
Do you dispute any of this? It has all been cited.
See how it works in GQ?
Regards,
Shodan
That is not what I have heard from the conservative echo chamber. They are quite clear that a public insurance plan will result in rationing, denial of care and euthanasia that will not occur with private insurance. How is it that the insurance industry cannot compete with that? The cost is what is irrelevant; no one wants to be subjected to rationing, care denial or death panels, even if it is cheaper.
Again, the public program – which doesn’t need to turn a profit – only needs to outperform the competition long enough to put the other companies out of business, and then it can really start in with the rationing and the denial of care and the euthanasia, as the only game in town. For bonus points, just make sure the legislation that creates the public program also hits the private corporations with costly new regulations.
There is no proposed UHC plan. The Republicans have a few bills in the senate and a few in the house, as do the Dems, and Obama has not a plan, but several suggestions for what he think the plan should include, but he doesn’t have an actual written bill of his own. So there’s not anyway to definitively answer this.
The main difference between medicare and what Obama is suggesting is that it won’t be a UHC system paid for out of taxes like medicare, it would be a series of regular insurance reforms coupled with a set of insurance pools including a government one set up to take advantage of price negotiation and which cannot refuse clients. But there’s no guarantee that what Obama suggests is what the Dems and Reps will put in their bill.
And most of the Republican scare tactics have more to do with the Dems bill, or their fantasy nightmare of what they imagine Obama wants than what is actually being proposed. Also a lot of the things being bandied about as scare tactics just aren’t true (will intentionally cover illegals! will make old people commit suicide!), or are obviously irrelevant (pointing out theoretically possible flaws in the system that are already flaws in the current system), just part of partisan politics as usual.
Medicares financial problems are the same as private health care problems. Our medical costs go up faster than inflation and have for decades. The fact is we pay too damn much for bad coverage. You are aware that our health will cost more than 40 percent of GNP within a few years. Does that mean private insurance is badly run. It is, but that alone is not the whole story. We have to hold down all medical costs . We have to rein the hospitals, doctors and other medical professions . We have to rethink our whole system. Going along with private insurers is a disaster. Letting all the people get into Medicare may be too. But Medicare still is run a hell of a lot cheaper than our for profit sector.
And again, the naysayers are adamant that government is incapable of meeting that standard, even for a little while.
Cite?
I mean, even Bill Clinton doesn’t usually go that far in attributing that kind of negativism to naysayers; here’s a helpful quote from an article in a magazine that just now hit the newsstands: “The whole idea was that government would mess up a two-car parade, therefore the only thing it was good for was cutting taxes, laying concrete, and supporting the Defense Department.” Because, y’know, even staunch right-wingers tend to say nice things about the US military.
Let’s have a cite that private insurance companies are due to become insolvent in a few years, if their problems are the same.
Regards,
Shodan
And in the end, this is what it all comes down to. The south lost the Civil War, then they couldn’t have segregation, then a Black man was elected president. The south is the poorest, least educated, least fit, and sickest part of the US, but damned it they are gonna allow the gummint carpet baggers come down there and fix things.
Yes, that’s it exactly: the Democratic Senators from Virginia and North Carolina and Arkansas and Louisiana and Florida are doing their level best to stop the Republican Senators from Maine and Indiana and Ohio and Iowa and Kansas before – no, wait, that doesn’t make a lick of sense, plus I’m not exactly sure where Joe Lieberman is supposed to fit in.
If the Grant-v-Lee comparison is distracting you, swap in something else. Like, say, a comic-book martial artist who (a) can use his superior skill to beat guys who are faster and stronger than he is, though he still (b) loses to Superman, because, hey, that guy’s a lot faster and stronger, and being more skilled only goes so far. Whatever helps you.