Obama Admin knew millions could not keep their health ins.

[estesbob]

I am not a CPA, but I am an accountant heavily involved in payroll. We get garnishments from the IRS for employee non payment of taxes all the time. I do believe the ACA was designated a tax by the SC.

It is possible there is an exception in the ACA, but the ACA was written before it was declared a tax by the SC,.

Another one of those “we have to pass the bill so YOU know what’s in it.”

I think nobody really knows at this point.

There has been no guidance on how this is going to be handled. We don’t know how it’s going to be handled on tax rerurn but I know of no reason why the IRS cant go after this tax like they do any other tax

 

[markomalley]

Okay 46,000 Canadians sought healthcare outside of Canada in 2011. Proportionately, the US population is 10 times that of Canada, so a comparable health system would expect about 460, 000 Americans to have sought care elsewhere.

The actual number in 2010:

Source: articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-04-04/national/35231713_1_health-care-medical-tourism-devi-shetty

That would indicate the US health care system was only half as good as the Canadian system. Correct?

Interesting the rationale, though.

You stated in the case of Canada,

1. Their medical complaint is one they view as critical and they do not want to risk any delay having the treatment. Typically, these are wealthy individuals who are not concerned about free vs costly. (Mr. Williams is an example.)
2. They have the money to afford high end or experimental treatments not covered by Canadian health care or where the alternative is more invasive or requires a longer convalescence. (Again, Mr. Williams is an example.)

To be clear, Canadians are not lured to the States for standard medical procedures where they would be paying for some service covered for free at home. These cross border sorties are almost always by the wealthy who take a pragmatic (to them) option because their health is worth paying for with money they have in abundance. I don’t see why this doesn’t make sense to you.

So Canadian medical tourists come here because they don’t want the wait or they don’t want to use old technology that would lay them up longer.

On the other hand, (from the article you cited):
When my father had a toothache, he saw a dentist in Boston who recommended a root canal and dental crown costing about $2,000. He decided to wait until he was in India, his native land, for holidays and had the procedure done there for $200. Extremely satisfied with the service and the price, my mother decided to have her two front teeth replaced, eliminating a wide gap that tarnished her smile, and estimated she had saved $3,000.
The generalization to be drawn here, apparently, is that medical tourists from the US travel abroad because the procedures are cheaper elsewhere.

Also from that article:
Devon Herrick, a policy expert at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a think tank based in Dallas, identified other factors that make foreign hospitals less expensive: lower labor costs certainly, but also fewer third-party payments, price transparency, limited malpractice liability and fewer regulations.
One of the reasons NOT cited was that these countries had socialized medicine.

Based upon that article from the WaPo, I would think that it would be a reasonable conclusion that if you wanted to lower costs in this country, you could get rid of third party payments, make the prices for the services more transparent, have tort reform, and cut out government regulation.

Not exactly Health Canada…and certainly not exactly Obamacare…

There is no doubt that the American medical system needs some improvement. But the improvement needed is in exactly the opposite direction that the socialists in power over the executive branch are taking us.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Interesting the rationale, though.

You stated in the case of Canada,

So Canadian medical tourists come here because they don’t want the wait or they don’t want to use old technology that would lay them up longer.

On the other hand, (from the article you cited):
When my father had a toothache, he saw a dentist in Boston who recommended a root canal and dental crown costing about $2,000. He decided to wait until he was in India, his native land, for holidays and had the procedure done there for $200. Extremely satisfied with the service and the price, my mother decided to have her two front teeth replaced, eliminating a wide gap that tarnished her smile, and estimated she had saved $3,000.
The generalization to be drawn here, apparently, is that medical tourists from the US travel abroad because the procedures are cheaper elsewhere.

Also from that article:
Devon Herrick, a policy expert at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a think tank based in Dallas, identified other factors that make foreign hospitals less expensive: lower labor costs certainly, but also fewer third-party payments, price transparency, limited malpractice liability and fewer regulations.
One of the reasons NOT cited was that these countries had socialized medicine.

Based upon that article from the WaPo, I would think that it would be a reasonable conclusion that if you wanted to lower costs in this country, you could get rid of third party payments, make the prices for the services more transparent, have tort reform, and cut out government regulation.

Not exactly Health Canada…and certainly not exactly Obamacare…

There is no doubt that the American medical system needs some improvement. But the improvement needed is in exactly the opposite direction that the socialists in power over the executive branch are taking us.

Mark,

I always look forward to your insightful comments.

As to… “One of the reasons NOT cited was that these countries had socialized medicine.”

It may well be that socialized medicine does not have the easy avenues of access that a more free market system does. It may be that there simply are not the easy access points available. If, for example, a socialized system is busy enough with its own workload, it simply may not allow access to those not under the plan. That says nothing about quality of care or cost, however. The quality of care may be as good and cost much less, but those from other countries may simply not be allowed in.

That Americans, for example, do not choose countries with socialized medicine (if that is even true) it need not imply these countries practice substandard medicine or have prohibitive costs. I am not sure that was your implication, but in case it was.

 

[Peter_Plato]

There is no doubt that the American medical system needs some improvement. But the improvement needed is in exactly the opposite direction that the socialists in power over the executive branch are taking us.

I am not clear that “the socialists in power” are implementing a socialist system. It may have the appearance of that, however, until full disclosure about who is ultimately profiting occurs, it is not clear, at least to me, that large corporate entities are not the ultimate beneficiaries.

When the US economy collapsed a few years back, was this not the same administration that bailed out auto giants and banks to the tune of billions. Socialists?

 

[Darryl1958]

Well for sure, the ones not benefiting are the millions who were lied to about being able to keep the insurance plans that they liked.

 

[Lormar]

What astonishes me to no end is that no one is actively looking to impeach this president.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Mark,

I always look forward to your insightful comments.

As to… “One of the reasons NOT cited was that these countries had socialized medicine.”

It may well be that socialized medicine does not have the easy avenues of access that a more free market system does. It may be that there simply are not the easy access points available. If, for example, a socialized system is busy enough with its own workload, it simply may not allow access to those not under the plan. That says nothing about quality of care or cost, however. The quality of care may be as good and cost much less, but those from other countries may simply not be allowed in.

That Americans, for example, do not choose countries with socialized medicine (if that is even true) it need not imply these countries practice substandard medicine or have prohibitive costs. I am not sure that was your implication, but in case it was.

Taxes (federal and provicincial) are higher in Canada than in the U.S. until you get to very high incomes, where U.S. rates are higher. Most states tax rates in the U.S. are not as hefty as Canadian provincial rates. My state’s income taxes are half what the lowest provincial rates are in Canada (Alberta)

Americans need to decide whether they want high taxes and a high degree of social services or whether they want lower taxes and be more on their own with things like healthcare.

Unfortunately, Americans never got the chance to truly vote on Obamacare. Most opposed it then and most oppose it now. It was the result of an unusual circumstance in which the House majority, 60% of the Senate and the president were all Democrats who acted in lockstep in voting for a bill few, if any, of them had ever read. That political mix shifted two years later, but now we’re stuck with it.

Obamacare is not a healthcare plan. It is not even an insurance plan. If you study it, it’s plainly an income redistribution plan. Had it been so advertised by this administration, even many Democrats would have shied away from it. But it wasn’t. It was fraudulently passed and has been fraudulently presented continuously to the American people. Now, of course, many are seeing that it was not “as advertised”, but it’s already in place.

The next move surely will be to increase taxes yet again because Obamacare is all based on borrowed money as well as the indirect income shifting from one segment of the middle class to another segment of it. There is not sufficient revenue to support it, despite the tax increases on capital gains and high incomes we have already seen.

And it is without question that full socialized medicine will also be expensive and will involve de facto rationing as is the case in most places where medicine is socialized.

Maybe people are okay with that. I’m not.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What astonishes me to no end is that no one is actively looking to impeach this president.

And be accused of racism? Noooo. But Bush would have been impeached for this, or at least there would have been congressional moves to do it.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Okay 46,000 Canadians sought healthcare outside of Canada in 2011. Proportionately, the US population (310 million) is about 10 times (actually 9.1) that of Canada (34 million), so a comparable health system would expect about 460, 000 Americans to have sought care elsewhere.

The actual number in 2010:

Source: articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-04-04/national/35231713_1_health-care-medical-tourism-devi-shetty

That would indicate the US health care system was only half as good as the Canadian system. Correct?

Medical tourism goes on around the world. People travel to other countries for health care from countries which have private health insurance, countries with single payer, and from countries with a mixture of both.

 

[_Abyssinia]

And wait patients must. A hospital survey of five countries (United States, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia), conducted by Robert Blendon and colleagues in Health Affairs found that “waits of six months or more for elective surgeries were reported to occur ‘very often’ or ‘often’ by 26–57 percent of executives in the four non-U.S. countries; only 1 percent of U.S. hospitals reported this. Half of all Canadian hospitals reported an average waiting time of over six months for a 65-year-old male requiring a routine hip replacement; no American hospital administrators reported waits this long.

blog.heritage.org/2010/02/09/the-canadian-patients’-remedy-for-health-care-go-to-america

ncpa.org/pub/ba649

Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.2] Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.

Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.4] Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate and colon cancer:

• Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
• Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a pap smear, compared to less than 90 percent of Canadians.
• More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a PSA test, compared to less than 1 in 6 Canadians (16 percent).
• Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with less than 1 in 20 Canadians (5 percent).

Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent). Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”
5]

http://www.ncpa.org/images/1838.jpg

Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long - sometimes more than a year - to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.6] All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.7] In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.8]

Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or "complete rebuilding."9]

Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).10]

Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K. Maligned as a waste by economists and policymakers naïve to actual medical practice, an overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identified computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade.11] [See the table.] The United States has 34 CT scanners per million Americans, compared to 12 in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has nearly 27 MRI machines per million compared to about 6 per million in Canada and Britain.12]

This article has different statistics regrding the number of MRI machines, but Canada still comes out as having fewer than America.

Canada has one of the lowest rates of MRI scanning machines per capita in the developed world, with six MRI scanners per million people, compared to 40.1 in Japan, 14.4 in Switzerland and 26.6 in the United States. Pittsburgh alone has more MRI machines than all of Canada.

bcliving.ca/health/mri-scans-waiting-for-public-health-care-vs-paying-for-a-private-mri-clinic

 

[estesbob]

Okay 46,000 Canadians sought healthcare outside of Canada in 2011. Proportionately, the US population (310 million) is about 10 times (actually 9.1) that of Canada (34 million), so a comparable health system would expect about 460, 000 Americans to have sought care elsewhere.

The actual number in 2010:

Source: articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-04-04/national/35231713_1_health-care-medical-tourism-devi-shetty

That would indicate the US health care system was only half as good as the Canadian system. Correct?

And this excuses the President of the United States repeatedly lying to the American people because…?

 

[Lormar]

And be accused of racism? Noooo. But Bush would have been impeached for this, or at least there would have been congressional moves to do it.

Precisely. And he knows this.

 

[Peter_Plato]

And this excuses the President of the United States repeatedly lying to the American people because…?

It doesn’t.

 

[Peter_Plato]

blog.heritage.org/2010/02/09/the-canadian-patients’-remedy-for-health-care-go-to-america

ncpa.org/pub/ba649

You do realize the stats in your “facts” are from a lobby group (National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) ) specifically created to “develop and promote private, free-market alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector.”

I am not saying they are not accurate, but do have a slant and require a second look.

 

[styrgwillidar]

What astonishes me to no end is that no one is actively looking to impeach this president.

Two words: President Biden

 

[SaintAugustine]

Two words: President Biden

:bigyikes::bigyikes::bigyikes::bigyikes::bigyikes::bigyikes::bigyikes::bigyikes:

 

[Lormar]

Two words: President Biden

 

[styrgwillidar]

I hope that was an appropriately scary thought for Halloween.

 

[ProVobis]

But Bush would have been impeached for this, or at least there would have been congressional moves to do it.

There were in fact moves to impeach Bush but Nancy Pelosi rejected them.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_George_W._Bush

When the Senate changes hands in 2014, the House may get its chance again.

 

[_Abyssinia]

You do realize the stats in your “facts” are from a lobby group (National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) ) specifically created to “develop and promote private, free-market alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector.”

I am not saying they are not accurate, but do have a slant and require a second look.

Sources that the NCPA are using for the article are not comissioned by NCPA are they? Sources for the statistics are listed.