Believe me, I’m a huge proponent of the HCRB, and I’ll be anticipating next week’s Supreme Court hearing about the law. The thing is, though, that in spite of all the abashed political rhetoric against the ACA, I can’t help but feel that the anti-HC reform hysteria would have been nullified if it had been implemented in its entirety far sooner (ie during Obama’s first term) so that everybody could finally experience its benefits. Seriously, even if the Supreme Court rules in favor of it, the law’s eventual fate will STILL be reliant upon Obama’s reelection and/or the Dems keeping control of the Senate. Why, exactly, was it decided to embrace this long-term implementation plan instead of an accelerated time table?
I mean, my history is off, but I can’t imagine that it took four years to institute Medicare after that program was established.
Rolling out major pieces of legislation over a period of years is now the norm. Fifty years ago it was not. I think the reason is a combination of many factors. For one, legislation these days is much longer and more complicated than in those days. Health care reform is over a thousand pages long and it requires a small army of bureaucrats just to parse the bill and figure out what it means. Actually implementing it will require ever more bureaucracy.
And second reason is that lengthy roll-outs allow politicians to be dishonest about costs and other factors. When Bush created Medicare Part D (the prescription drug benefit) ten years ago, he didn’t want to be honest about the costs of it, especially not with his own party. By having different benefits coming into existence only after a few years, he could report low cost figures for the first few years, prior to those benefits existing.
(That is, an 11-year period that includes an additional 3 years of the fully implemented plan at the back end vs. a 10-year period that includes 2 years of ramping-up at the front end).
ETA: that was the second hit when I searched google news for “CBO”.
The people who told you that were liars or mistaken. You shouldn’t get your news from people that regularly lie to you on purpose or are so inept that they make mistakes over and over again. It makes you think things that are not real are happening. It makes you mad at the wrong people.
Firstly it would be VERY expensive to add in all the features everyone wants. Altho the majority of Americans want Govt Healthcare, few can agree on what they want in such a plan. Bare minimum urgent care? Full boat hospitalization? Picking your own Doctor? Alternative therapies? Free or at a fee? And, almost none could agree on how or who to pay for it.
Most Americans have had access to health insurance for a minimum co-payment (their employer pays the rest) for a long time. They are just used to getting that. Features they take for granted, like choosing your won Doctors are actually something that’s pretty hard to do in a socialized medical system.
The costs of health reform don’t start in earnest until 2014, giving a 10 year projection (2009-2019) that seems pretty rosy when it comes to costs.
I can’t find the stat onhand, but I believe 2009-2013 was only about $5 billion a year, and most of that was to fund the pre-existing condition high risk pools that the states set up as a bridge to 2014. The costs in 2014-2018 were much higher, but when you average those costs together (5 billion a year for 5 years plus 100-200 billion a year for 5 years) you get a number that is artificially low.
Other countries with socialized medical care don’t appear to bear out your statement. You have it exactly backwards, the system we have *now *limits your doctor choices. You know how you choose a doctor from a list of doctors who accept your insurance?
Before this thread goes any further, everyone should answer some basic questions about the UHC they are envisioning before this thread spirals into the depths:
Will private insurance/health care collectives/etc offering the same services as the government plans still be allowed to exist?
Will patient’s be able to pay cash/finance payments if they want service from providers without dealing with insurance at all?
The answer to question number one is the most important part. My impression (and I have nothing on hand to back this up) is there’s very little enthusiasm for forcing Cigna, BCBS, Aetna, etc. out of business but unless everyone buys in you quickly start losing the advantages of the single-payer system. It’s hard to avoid something analogous to the current situation with private vs Medicare or even Medicare vs Medicare advantage.
Umm, sure. I don’t know what the hell you’re getting at. Look, some dudes what their MD, the doc they have been seeing for 20 years, all of which has been on the same plan. They don’t; want a different doc, so they want a plan that will cover their MD.
Sure, if you had to switch plans, your Doc might well not be on the new plan. So?
That doesn’t mean that you still would not WANT a plan that allowed you to choose your MD.
Are you saying that some people don’t want their current Doctor?
And thus don’t want a plan under which their current Doctors isn’t covered?
I am completely confused about what the hell youre arguing about or why youre getting up in my face about this basic fact.
In many other countries pretty much every doctor is covered under the universal plans (they vary from country to country though, but most doctors are on the plans). In the US your doctor of choice may not be covered by insurance. If you lose your job or your employer changes your plan your doctor won’t be covered. Medicare covers about 1/6 of the population. Doctors can afford to opt out of that or medicaid (medicaid is even worse). In places with true universal systems there really aren’t a whole lot of doctors who have opted out of the system. They probably exist, but I’m sure they are a small number.
Its confusing because a lot of the criticisms people make against universal health care (death panels, rationing, limited choice, out of control costs, doctors who have to cut through red tape to get funding to perform procedures, doctors whose hands are tied by bureaucrats, massive bureaucratic overhead) and in favor of the US system are the problems we face in our domestic health care system that are either eliminated or reduced in socialized system.
I’m not sure on numbers, but my friend’s dad is a private surgeon and he’s absolutely loaded. In a mixed (read: SOCIALIST!!) system where private competition isn’t completely ruled out, the exact same scenario as in the US occurs: one can choose anyone one wishes, as long as one has the money.
That said, the GP in the local (socialist) clinic is loaded as well, so one can get rich off the state.
Obviously. You said that choosing a doctor was harder under a universal plan. It’s not. I tried to explain that to you but appear to have failed.
It seems clear that you meant, specific individuals might want specific doctors that they have as a result of our current system. But if we do anything to change our system, that specific doctor might not take the new, universal system.
But that’s how it works now. Any time your employer granted health care could jump providers. Any universal system will have much more coverage under one umbrella. Lowering the amount of this problem, we as Americans suffer.