I never read that particular post. And it’s nothing but the standard right wing Horatio Alger nonsense about people getting rich by working hard and doing a better job. And it IS nonsense; the people who work hard and do good jobs are the people that the rich make their money FROM; not the rich themselves. Primarily, you get rich by having rich ancestors. And if not that, by sucking up to those who are already rich and aiding in their exploitation of the people who actually do the work. People who work hard are lucky if they stay middle class. People who create new innovations are lucky if they get a small bonus while their bosses rake in the millions or billions.
First of all: are we talking health care or health insurance reform? There is a difference.
The biggest problem with health care costs is the assumption that it will be paid for by insurance and thus costs are inflated by the doctors. In the early 90’s, I had to pay $150 for a doctor to tell me that my toe that was oozing pus was infected. No treatment, no prescription, no nothing. I’m sure the doctor and hospital (both billed me) had that $150 based on what insurance would pay. So the cost of health care is based on doctors and not insurance. I argue that the high cost of insurance is based on that.
Any reform must address the greed of doctors and hospitals vs the need of insurance to make a profit. You can’t force an insurance company to accept someone with a preexisting condition (I’ll buy your insurance when I get the cancer) and if you count on someone offering low-cost, low-benefit insurance for basic primary care, the doctors won’t accept it (I won’t accept $50 for an office visit).
I would offer a government-based primary care insurance that doctors can participate in to get student-loan forgiveness. For an added cost, specialist insurance can be added (think of the American public as a giant potential “group”) but this coverage can be denied to an individual for consumer lifestyle choices like extreme obesity or smoking.
A movement towards nurse-practitioners will help with some of that. I know what you mean, my kid had recurring ear-infections, I knew he needed the pink goo (Ampicillin), the pink goo always worked, and we always knew when it was needed. Why do we need to take up a highly-trained physician’s time with the bloody obvious?
One idea of mine is to set up–over and above everything else–is to set up a number of large government-run facilities–like on ex-military bases–where people with chronic conditions–I’ll come right out and say it–are warehoused.
Sure, being government-run means they’d be a disaster–like veterans hospitals–but that’s reflected in the fact that you don’t really want to go there, so you won’t cancel your existing insurance. It would be for people with nowhere else to go.
That would dovetail with my other idea, which is to set up a number of “magnet” high schools whose curricula leaned toward training students for jobs in health care. Some students would be groomed to go on to medical school, while the others would be steered toward jobs as nurses, orderlies, etc.
They could be a main source for staffing the sinister government-run warehouse hospitals I’m proposing, as well as flesh out the labor pool of health care professionals, which ought to bring down salaries ad thus prices.
Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR): “I will never vote for a bill to kill old people, period.”
We are much reassured.
Mike Ross clearly lacks imagination.
What if the old people are hosts for alien neuro-virus invaders trying to take over the world? What then, huh?
Note, also, that countries with UHC have decreased their expenditures on lawsuits, primarily for two reasons:
- With UHC, claims for medical treatment costs are moot.
- If doctors are considered government employees, they can’t be sued over this. Other countries allow lawsuits, but have quasi-govermental insurance agencies that reduce the cost malpractice coverage per doctor through economies of scale (which, coincidentally, is the same reason that larger pools results in decreased costs per person for health insurance).
Could we still harvest some of their organs? And would the infected ones still have that old person smell?
First, I have to nod in brickbacon’s direction…I do hope both mazinger_z and Sam Stone will respond to his post (#79).
While acknowledging that I’m not addressing most of your proposal, I’d focus on this “universal catastrophic insurance program” as a (political) non-starter. How would it be funded? Also, what are some details of its operation (particularly the decision-making)?
Based on post #33, I think you’d expect the government to fund it, with the stipulation that there’s some amount of individual-borne cost, on a sliding scale proportional to individual wealth.
It strikes me that the “socialist” charge has much more validity for the above than what’s currently being proposed in Congress.* Furthermore, I think there’s a cost dilemma that needs resolution (related to the decision-making I mentioned; i.e., “death panel” if care is rationed vs. deficit-increasing if not).
But perhaps I don’t understand it properly, so I’ll await a response…
*IMHO, a bad argument; my point is only that one should expect at least the same level of political contentiousness.
I don’t believe you. You were even directed to it. But, since you were so interested in that thread, please post your response to it there, as I don’t want to hijack this thread.
Tricare isn’t the same as Medicare or Medicaid. It’s intended for active duty military, reservists, retirees, and their families. Tricare is much closer to the VA in terms of how care is delivered; rather than contracting with private physicians, most care is delivered by providers who are employed by the federal government or who are members of the active military or reserve. It generally does well with preventative care and management of chronic problems, but unless you live close to a military hospital, you still have to rely on the civilian system for urgent care, or really, for any acute care if the clinic can’t deal with your problem. In fact, I’ve had to take the sprog to the ER for strep throat during office hours because the clinic was closed. Tricare paid those claims at 100%, but what would be a relatively inexpensive office visit turned out to run about $1000 between hospital fees, lab fees and physician fees.
I would totally support a catastrophic government plan, funded by tax dollars and premiums paid on the sliding scale. There wouldn’t be any decision-making by the government - it’s only function would be to cover medical bills over a particular amount.
But it would have to be optional. I’m not sure how I feel about forcing people to carry insurance (actually, I think it sucks, but I can see the practicality of it), but I would expect that non-public insurance would also be available. I would imagine that the premiums paid to the insurance companies on gap-coverage plans would level out the premiums charged for the catastrophic policies.
Of course you want to hijack this thread; that’s why you are bringing up something so irrelevant to it. And I’m not “so interested in that thread”; YOU brought it up. I lost interest and stopped reading it some time ago, which is why I didn’t read your post.
And I note that again you avoided actually addressing what I said, unsurprisingly.
Add in
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Deregulation of the health insurance market, with permission to sell across state lines in the USA and
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Tort reform
and I think we have a winner.
I’d think there would have to be some decision-making by the entity picking up the tab. That is: at a minimum, some specification as to what procedures are legitimate, in addition to an idea of how much they should cost. Without such, you’d essentially be setting up a race to the minimum “catastrophe” price (pushed at least in part by insurers and doctors themselves).
Suddenly, (playing with the meaning of “catastrophe”) every individual has the potential to be “too big to fail”.
No, I don’t want to hijack it, which is why I didn’t repost any of that content here. You posted your same cartoonish nonsense there as you did here. and I called you on it again. You ran away from the other thread. Perhaps the following will help you see the ridiculousness of your own behavior:
Well, you certainly got me there, I guess. So, let me quote the entirety of your contribution to this thread. Let’s keep in mind the title of the OP is “What sort of health care reform do conservatives actually support?” Here are all your “contributions” to this issue of our times:
Perhaps you’d be so kind as to call my attention to which of these weighty gems regarding the type of health care reform conservatives support you’d like feedback on.
I’m having a hard time seeing anything of any substance or value. All I see is, as I presciently anticipated and shared, is more of your pat cartoonish rants about how evil conservatives are. Any of these could have been posted by you in any thread in which conservative beliefs are being discussed. But, maybe I’m mistaken. Please, by all means, point to which of those weight gems you’re so proud of or would actually like feedback on. In the meantime, I’ll ask you for cites for any three of them you’d like to back up with anything other than mouth.
I have a question. I came across this cartoonin my internet travels. I’ve also heard some of these numbers thrown atound from some pundits, Huckabee, I think it was. My question is twofold:
- are the numbers accurate?
- if they are, does it imply that a much more targeted, less sweeping approach might be called for?
That’s my take. Assuming the numbers are correct, of course. Make sense?
Additionally, when Obama, or whoever, says that we need this sweeping reform because there are 47 million uninsureds, is he counting the number of illegal immigrants? If so, why? Hasn’t he said that the reform he envisions will NOT provide insurance to illegals? It seems like he’s just trying to beef up the number to paint a more dire picture. Am I wrong?
They don’t support any reform at all, which was rather obviously my point.
Could you please provide a cite that shows that most conservatives in the US do not want any reforms to the US health care system? Failing that, could you please go away? We are trying to have an actual conversation here.
And magellon01, Obamacare leaves about half the uninsured still without coverage, the last I heard. But I am not sure if he means the illegal aliens, or some other group.
Regards,
Shodan
Wow, you used all those words in all those posts spewing nonsense just to say that. Okay. Since we’re now on track for a substantive debate, can you provide a cites for your following claims:
- most Republicans are birthers
- most conservatives don’t want any health care reform at all
Thanks.