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ProVobis
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Simple. Just tell him he can write in Ron Paul on the ballot. Should be easy to spell.
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Robert_Bay
Guest
MODERATOR NOTICE
There is a lot of campaigning going on here. Please review the forum rules before I have to suspend members.
You may discuss the issues but advocation for a particular candidate violates the forum rules.
There is a lot of campaigning going on here. Please review the forum rules before I have to suspend members.
You may discuss the issues but advocation for a particular candidate violates the forum rules.
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Scott_Lafrance
Guest
I don’t vote for hope. A lot of Catholics did in 08 and look what we got.
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LisaA
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You are right, Part D pales in comparison to Medicare and Medicaid. Further it is not utilized at nearly the same rate as Medicare (Part A). IOW not all sign up. Second there a ways to control costs, similarly to Medicare and Medicaid so not anywhere near the timb bomb of SS, MC and MA. I have also heard that Part D has surprised everyone in that the model works more efficiently (as you said via insurance companies) and is fiscally sound vis a vis the other entitlements.
Aside from that I don’t particularly applaud the enactment of Part D. And I never said Bush was a conservative. He wasn’t. He was a Republican and that doesn’t mean the same thing. Again, anyone who points to a flub up by Republicans to counter the tidal wave of entitlements, government programs, regulations, and meddling by the Democrats needs to understand you are comparing a pop gun with a nuclear bomb. There is simply no comparison.
Lisa
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bbarrick8383
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I don’t either, but I still hope every day that the majority of this country wakes up and becomes more libertarian.
They are at least, to some extent, becoming more educated it seems.
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LisaA
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Actually with respect to medical care the opposite is true. Are you aware of the methodology of payment on the part of Medicare and Medicaid? Rates are predetermined and docs/hospitals have a take it or leave it choice. Just as an example:
Surgical Procedure Actual Charge: $5900
Medicare Payment $1783
Surgical Procedure (Pediatric) Actual Charge $5000
Medicaid Payment $ 704
These are actual payments ProVobis. I’ve been doing this for 27 years so I know of what I speak. As to raising the price, in medicine the vast majority of insurance companies have contracts with doctors. We could double our prices and we’d still get the same payment. Futher in the late 1980s Medicare cut a number of its most common procedures by 40%! Then they have continued to cut year after year although not that magnitude. The upshot of all this is that the non-Medicare insurance companies have ALSO reduced payments to docs and hospitals. So say the above procedure was a patient with what we call FFS (Fee For Service). Instead of $1783 we’d get $3000+ or - a bit. The same case would have paid $4000+ before the drop in Medicare rates.
Medical care is a whole different kettle of fish and the usual economic rules do not apply
LIsa
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LisaA
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Just curious, how can you, as a Catholic accept Libertarian policies on social issues: legalizing drugs, legalizing prostitution, keeping abortion legal etc.
When Ron Paul speaks on fiscal and domestic issues I’m in full nodding agreement. But when I hear other Libertarians speak and see their stated platform, I could never vote for anyone in that party. While I agree that keeping government out of our lives to the extent possible is a worthy goal, there are some societal deviencies that I think must be regulated and kept illegal.
Lisa
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ProVobis
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Fair points but it still would be interesting to see what the price of surgical procedures would be without insurance and without government subsidies. I guess to some extent perhaps having your surgery in Thailand or some other country keeps a certain lid on procedures done here. Other than that, what keeps a lid on prices, not the actual out-of-pocket costs?
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_Abyssinia
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Rising Gas Prices Give G.O.P. Issue to Attack Obama
Gas prices are already nearly at $5 in some states.
nytimes.com/2012/02/19/us/politics/high-gas-prices-give-gop-issue-to-attack-obama.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all
Gas prices are already nearly at $5 in some states.
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ProVobis
Guest
“Legalizing” something doesn’t mean promoting it but unfortunately the Libertarian Party doesn’t do a good job of explaining its principles. I can understand your concerns when it comes to the party itself. I wish they would reword some of its positions.
Strangely enough, I was involved in one LP group which was doing well but then one of the candidates kept harping on getting pro-drug bills passed, so much so he decided he would run as a Republican instead because the LPers wouldn’t support him.
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LisaA
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As I said, PRICE is irrelevant in medical care reimbursement. The vast majority of medical procedures are paid by a third party. Many think this is the reason it’s so expensive! A patient has no incentive to shop around, look for a better price or to get the best results for his particular need. He has Blue Cross, needs a knee replacement, Blue Cross says go to Dr Smith and the XYZ Hospital which has negotiated a contract with Blue Cross. Patient doesn’t care what it costs the insurance company although he’ll howl about the co-pay or deductible believe me. This is another casualty of the insurance system. Since we are divorced from the actual charges and payments, we think medical care is “free” or should be. People who spend $5 a day at Starbucks scream like scalded rats when they have to fork over thirty bucks to see a doctor.
What keeps medical care high in the US? Insurance mandates–more government interference. This is like the HHS Mandate which means the EVERYONE pays for what they may or may not need. Lobbyists have forced insurance companies to cover everything from Viagra to sex change operations to endless mental health counselling. Because the scope of their coverage is so broad everyone pays more. I as a very healthy, normal size non smoker would love to have a very high deductible policy that doesn’t cover sex changes or bariatric surgery. I can’t get that because of mandates. BTW the Obamacare bill RUINED some of the few patient centered ideas and plans such as HSAs and Medicare Advantage. Again government meddling increasing costs while not providing value.
Further because we can’t buy health insurance across state lines in many states there is virtually no competition. If an insurance company could market to all 300MM Americans I assure you the rates would drop like a rock.
Our litigation nation is another problem. Malpractice rates are extremely high in many states, not because they have a lot of bad docs but because they don’t have tort reform or other restrictions on litigation. Loser pays would be a great start!
BTW the cost of medical care is not increasing because of higher pay to doctors. Some docs today make about 40% of what they made in 1977 and that’s not considering inflation
Lisa
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bbarrick8383
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Just to be up front, I am not Catholic. Very much in love with and fully support your Church though.
I do not support legalizing of drugs.
I do not support legalizing of prostitution.
And most important I do not support abortion, nowhere.
Drugs and prostitution should be up to the community and or state in which you live. I live in an overwhelmingly conservative state which would never support the legalization of drugs. I’m happy with that, however I’d like to see smarter drug laws. Our prisons, like many others are overcrowded with nonviolent drug users who have been caught repeatedly and would be better off at a rehabilitation center.
Prostitution is another matter which could be possibly be handled with a little more care rather than a hard nose approach.
Abortion is a violation of a child’s right to life which is a violation of the basic rule of law. One can make a very good argument against abortion without even bringing religion into the discussion.
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ProVobis
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I had a discussion with my Representative on this one. Right now the states regulate all insurance within their respective states. (That means ensuring that the carrier has enough reserves to pay off its claims among other things. Remember an insurance company cannot file for bankruptcy but its holding company can but that’s another topic.) As I had my doubts as to how this would work if the insuree is in another state, I argued that now they’d have to have some federal oversight to sell insurance out-of-state (could they charge higher rates as they do with tuition, for example?) something that we didn’t have before. He never responded to this concern.
Otherwise good points.
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havana1
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That’s not exactly accurate. Even with insurance (particularly with insurance), it’s still quite difficult to find “mental health counseling,” which is a redundant term. Looking for a psychiatrist? Even more difficult. Most psychiatrist only treat children (pre-teen) and adolescents, with month-long waiting lists for the psychiatrists who accept adults as patients. If it were as easy as you claim, I wouldn’t have to get psychotropic meds from my family doctor - which, by the way, is the most common source of over-prescribed psychotropic meds. Would you like to redact the mental health services from your comment?
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LisaA
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No because I didn’t make any comment on the ease of finding an adequate counsellor. I know nothing about that having never accessed or been involved in the mental health professionals. What I do know is that when our insurance rates rose dramatically one year, it was according to my agent, due to a new state mandate for mental health services. Now believe me I do not dispute mental health issues as a serious problem that needs access to quality care, the point is these mandates force ALL of us to pay for a Cadillac policy when we might prefer to drive a Volkswagen.That’s not exactly accurate. Even with insurance (particularly with insurance), it’s still quite difficult to find “mental health counseling,” which is a redundant term. Looking for a psychiatrist? Even more difficult. Most psychiatrist only treat children (pre-teen) and adolescents, with month-long waiting lists for the psychiatrists who accept adults as patients. If it were as easy as you claim, I wouldn’t have to get psychotropic meds from my family doctor - which, by the way, is the most common source of over-prescribed psychotropic meds. Would you like to redact the mental health services from your comment?
I think we should all be able to pick the kind of policy that fits our particular needs and pay accordingly. One of the examples of the ridiculousness of the HHS Mandate for female abortofacients, sterilization, and ABC was for a group of MONKS. Aside from the ethical concerns, it makes no sense whatsoever for everyone to pay more for care they neither want nor would ever access. There are a number of equally inappropriate mandates that various states have enacted which is another limitation to having insurance sold across state lines.
A patient centered, market driven focus would have a very positive impact on our medical care reimbursement situation.
Lisa
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estesbob
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Being pro-life is just the minimum qulification for a canidate to recieve a Catholics vote. It doesnt meean you have to vote for them. You could vote for a pro-life fringe canidate with no hope of winning and be in perfect alignment with the teachings of the Church. From a practical standpoint that helps re-elect the most pro-abortion Presdient in history.
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LisaA
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Oh and to your point about difficulty in access; insurance is the PROBLEM not the solution. Because insurance limits both the number of visits and the payments to the provider, you will find (as you have) that there aren’t that many providers willing to take you if you have one of the more restrictive plans. I just bet if you called up and said “I’m Mr. Gotrocks and will pay $500 a visit” you wouldn’t be on a waiting list.That’s not exactly accurate. Even with insurance (particularly with insurance), it’s still quite difficult to find “mental health counseling,” which is a redundant term. Looking for a psychiatrist? Even more difficult. Most psychiatrist only treat children (pre-teen) and adolescents, with month-long waiting lists for the psychiatrists who accept adults as patients. If it were as easy as you claim, I wouldn’t have to get psychotropic meds from my family doctor - which, by the way, is the most common source of over-prescribed psychotropic meds. Would you like to redact the mental health services from your comment?
It’s the same situation with patients who need an internist or a cardiologist or whatever. They call up Dr X and say I have WeDontCare Insurance. The doc says find another provider, we don’t take that plan. This is what a number of Medicare and certainly Medicaid patients find, and the real flaw in “everyone has insurance with Obamacare!” theory. You can have insurance but until slavery is re-enacted, you cannot compel a doctor to treat you if he/she thinks the payment isn’t worth his/her time. We’ll see more of this with Obamacare believe me!
Again, patient driven, market based, competitve structure will solve a lot more problems than another monster healthcare bill
Lisa
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Ridgerunner
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I’m not sure that anyone could predict what medical costs would be without the level of government intervention we have presently.
LisaA obviously has a connection wtih the industry, probably in insurance, so possibly she might correct some of what I am about to say.
For one thing, underlying cost of delivering medical services varies a lot with locale, with the talent in that locale and the way medical services are arranged. I live in a fairly low-cost part of the state (S.W. Mo) which is really part of an economic complex that includes the conglomerate cities in N.W. Ark. The medical facilities are superb throughout the region. Yet, back when I used to negotiate provider contracts, I always received discounts to Medicare rate. Part of that has to do, I am sure, with the low cost of living here and the seconary attractions to very good physicians. Part of it probably has to do with the baselines from which the big medical organizations started. Part of it may have to do with the relative homogeneity of the populace and the high level of insurance coverage among residents. Unemployment is low and insurance is widely available.
However, it needs to be said that it would be entirely possible for basic medical care to be provided at less cost than people do face, particularly for routine care. A very simple aid to the whole thing would be if this state allowed independent NP practice the way some states do. Some physician clinics do have that in fact, if not in theory, but one of the barriers, ironically enough, is the hassle with billing. For every doctor or highly skilled NP there are two billing clerks who wade their way through Medicare, Medicaid and insurance labyrinths, and reconcile bills two, three months after service and after (for example) Medicare and secondary insurance has all been reconciled.
Part of the problem, too, is that almost nobody pays for his own medical care, but expects someone else to pay for it. I don’t know what it would cost without all of the hassle, but I do see Amish, who pay in greenbacks, negotiate costs well below “reasonable and necessary”. Why not? All the clerical staff has to do is put the money in the drawer and write up a receipt.
Part of it is that the government changes its reimbursement rates. Recently, the upgrades have been for “well care”, but reduced for “chronic care”. So clinics scramble to change their structures and patient profiles to maximize the former at the expense of the latter.
And the very nature of Medicare and Medicaid distorts everything else. Both are supposedly discounted BELOW what it actually costs to deliver the service. That results in setting “reasonable and necessary” charges higher than they otherwise would have been, notwithstanding that around here, anyway, they’re happy to get Medicare rate. But they have to go along with the pretense that it’s a discount, when it isn’t. So there’s a whole additional set of rates.
In addition, medical organizations get to build their costs into Medicare rate. In some places where land and construction is fairly inexpensive, like here, it results in some of the most fabulous gold-plating one can imagine.
Truthfully, I’m not sure how it could be made into a rational system. But I will say that all medical organizations adapt themselves to what the government wants, and they all figure out a way to profit from it.
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the_7th_one
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Unless the prayer is followed by action? Then it is good use
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ishii
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Prayer and action is necessary to fight evil. In our system, we get to take action every November and its called voting.
Ishii
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