Socialized healthcare

[river444]

In instead of socializing healthcare we should fix the some problems associated with Healthcare.

Kick the Drug Companies out of the doctors office- no promontial materials
Forbid the advertising of **prescription **drugs
Loser pay system
Better emphasis on preventive care
Require individuals to purchase and maintain health insurance unless they prove they can not afford it. Perhaps make some part of the cost tax decductible.
Make insurance in one state valid in all states
Penalize people for “emergency room abuse”- people going to ER for strep throat for example

 

[wabrams]

You may type that “most” people don’t want the government involved all you want but the existing government structures indicate that there is a long history of people wanting their government to get involved in the health system

At most, only 50% of those insured are insured through the government. That does not indicate a large percentage of people want the government involved in health care.

 

[jonhi]

It would be far better for the Feds to have incentives to keep the uninsured covered in the private sector than to have all of us covered by the Federal gov’t. There are many programs that use tax incentives to accomplish things Uncle Sam should not be in, and they work well. The only thing left for all of us if we accept gov’t insurance for all, and it fails, is complete collapse and every one starts over. That would be worse than any private method of keeping healthcare out of the US gov’ts hands. If the poor need a premium subsidy to help bridge the cost of coverage they cannot afford, it would be far better than all of us tossing our health care into an entity that is dubious at best. I would rather see that, than a refund of over paid taxes (you will get a check soon in the mail)- hey wait!! people could use their tax refund to finance their health care if they don’t have any!!! Lets see how many people do the right thing with their overcharge rebate!! If they really need health care, they will use that $ for that purpose, right??!! Right???
Jonhi

 

[pathia]

Lets see how many people do the right thing with their overcharge rebate!! If they really need health care, they will use that $ for that purpose, right??!! Right???
Jonhi

Some people are always rejected by the free market, like me. It is literally impossible for me to purchase private insurance. I’d gladly use the rebate for that, but guess what? There’s no insurance to actually buy with it.

 

[Hastrman]

Kick the Drug Companies out of the doctors office- no promontial materials
Forbid the advertising of **prescription **drugs
Loser pay system
Better emphasis on preventive care
Make insurance in one state valid in all states

Good!
Assuming that “loser pay system” is a typo for “looser pay system.”

Require individuals to purchase and maintain health insurance unless they prove they can not afford it. Perhaps make some part of the cost tax decductible.
Penalize people for “emergency room abuse”- people going to ER for strep throat for example

I doubt there are many people that can afford health insurance–reasonably I mean–and yet don’t have it. If you’re going to make it mandatory, you should probably only make catastrophic (only covers above a certain cost procedure) mandatory, since it’s cheaper. And it should without question be tax deductible.

I’m not sure if “ER abuse” is bad, though.

And there is also the important question of tort reform. Without insane malpractice costs, doctors don’t have to charge nearly as much.

 

[steveandersen]

At most, only 50% of those insured are insured through the government. That does not indicate a large percentage of people want the government involved in health care.

(1) I cited the government’s existing involvement in other aspects of health care, not insurance.

(2) 50% isn’t a large percentage?

 

[steveandersen]

It would be far better for the Feds to have incentives to keep the uninsured covered in the private sector than to have all of us covered by the Federal gov’t. There are many programs that use tax incentives to accomplish things Uncle Sam should not be in,

So you want Uncle to pay for it or subsidize it?
How would this be different from a single payer system?

How would this affect the poor who probably don’t pay income taxes in the first place?

How would this solve the problem of getting a doctors appointment today if you still have to wait for April 15th to get your tax credit?

and they work well.

Some do
Sometimes there are problems:
You still have the private sector staff(s) that runs the insurance companies
They still take their profit
Now there would have to be a parallel bureaucracy monitoring and overseeing this private sector (even more than they currently do)
And if it is to be done through tax incentives, that is one more complicated IRS form to fill out.

The only thing left for all of us if we accept gov’t insurance for all, and it fails, is complete collapse and every one starts over.

If the government fails we’ll have other problems than doctor bills

That would be worse than any private method of keeping healthcare out of the US gov’ts hands. If the poor need a premium subsidy to help bridge the cost of coverage they cannot afford, it would be far better than all of us tossing our health care into an entity that is dubious at best.

So you problem isn’t with the government paying for something, you are just concerned with whether the folks shuffling the papers around are government or private employees?

If Uncle is going to pony up the money then he has to have some say in how it is spent.

There are plenty of government programs that run perfectly well every day.
Every other industrialized nation has some sort of national health program and I don’t think that they are on the verge of collapse.

I would rather see that, than a refund of over paid taxes (you will get a check soon in the mail)- hey wait!! people could use their tax refund to finance their health care if they don’t have any!!! Lets see how many people do the right thing with their overcharge rebate!! If they really need health care, they will use that $ for that purpose, right??!! Right???
Jonhi

You think $1,200 will pay for health insurance?

 

[DL82]

Yep, that’s the problem. I have yet to see a well-managed, efficient, corruption-free government program.

Well, if you choose never to leave America, that’s your choice!

 

[jonhi]

First, Godwin’s law is invoked. You lose.

Second, you wouldn’t know fascism if it tap danced across your nose. Consider what the father of fascism (Mussolini) said: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

Third, in a democratic Republic, the government not some entity out there, but the agent of the people. Now I know that what you hear on the radio and on the cable news channel named after the canine with the bushy tail tells you that the government is some sort of autonomous entity that is eeeeevil and is out to get you but that’s not the basis upon which this country was founded.

Now, if you are ready to be honest, you’ll understand that no one is talking about government-controlled health care or a system where the doctors would work directly for the government as civil service employees. They would remain as they are today…either in private practice, employees of privately run hospitals or employees of public hospitals. The most “radical” change I’ve heard proposed is best called “Medicare for All.” In case you don’t know how Medicare works, it’s where the agency in charge of Medicare processes the collection of moneys and payments for health care for the most expensive segment in our society for health care, the elderly…at only a 2-3% overhead rate (salaries, office space, paper, etc.). The Medicare agency (I’m not sure if it’s the SSA or not) merely collects the moneys and pays out claims, that’s it.

It’s not like the system most Americans are subjected to where life-saving care is denied because of this or that loophole (usually well hidden in the contracts) or people just die because they cannot afford care. People aren’t denied for “pre-existing conditions,” which could be ANYTHING. I mean, God forbid someone who has health insurance actually get SICK!

Godwin’s Law is invoked- I WIN!! In looking up Godwin’s law, the reference to Facism , it is the only correct definition of what the left is trying to do with health care- Either government domination (ownership of it) OR gov’t control of (Facism) of it. There is NO way to get around that statement, so quit trying to.

 

[vern_humphrey]

There is a workable solution, MSAs.

The fundamental principle behind Medical Savings Accounts (MSA) is that you buy cheap, high-deductible catastrophic health insurance, and then save an amount each year equal to the deductible with tax-free dollars. You use that money to cover any medical expenses up to the deductible. You roll any unused dollars over at the end of each year into your IRA. The institution holding the MSA would issue a credit card, and this card would be used to pay for health care. This would have several important impacts:

1. Paperwork makes up from one-third (in private health plans) to two-thirds (in government programs) of the total cost of health care. The use of this credit card approach would dramatically reduce the paperwork and result in lower costs.
2. The current systems of paying for health care have long delays built in. The pay-on-the-spot approach would allow care providers to further lower costs.
3. MSAs provide an incentive for people to bargain for health care – when people spend their own money (and know they can keep all they save), they have an incentive to bargain for better rates.
4. MSAs provide an incentive to avoid over-consumption of medical care.

People who cannot afford MSAs can apply for assistance, based on their most recent tax return, and would receive proportionate assistance – not an automatic 100%. They would get help with insurance premiums and with each payment from their MSA – so they would always have the chance to save something by bargaining and not over-consuming.

Young people would especially benefit from this – since they could build up substantial savings in their healthiest years.

 

[steveandersen]

sounds interesting

 

[Stolen_Rutters]

Don’t forget that socialized healthcare does not equal universal health care. We can have universal health care without government control of the system.

Socialized = government control
universal = everyone participates

I like universal health care because of the possible benefits we will all reap, but I don’t want our government to nationalize the industry.

There are some single payer systems that seem to work pretty well, with no nationalization of the system required. Maybe we can look into that.

I don’t like MSAs. The proposals I have seen are just a scam to divert the earnings of the MSA to the banks. You KNOW they are not going to pass on all the earnings of the MSA investments to the end user. You put $2000 into an MSA and you are NOT going to have $2080 sitting in the account at the end of the year if you don’t use it. They will intice you with the tax break, and the bank will walk away with the interest. Give me the tax break AND the interest, and I might change my mind.

 

[Jzyehoshua]

Concerning universal health care, I have yet to see a single good argument against it. If it is at all a possibility, of course we should have it! What good argument is there against our government taking care of its weakest and poorest?

As Thomas Carlyle once said, “A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.” Likewise, a great nation shows its greatness by how it takes care of its weakest and poorest. The question is not whether or not we should have such a system, but whether or not we can afford it.

Sadly, our economy is crumbling thanks to a war which contributes an additional $9 billion to our federal deficit every single day. Our military is the single greatest drain upon our government finances and a single fighter jet can cost over $1 billion to manufacture.

Our housing market is putting our economy at risk of a recession thanks to homeowners across the country losing their houses as a result of deceptive lending practices. If our government had protected them from the vile lenders using Adjustable Rates, then we wouldn’t have this glut of extra homes on the market that is driving down prices and creating a huge excess of unsold properties.

Also, our job market is weakening here in the U.S. because the Free Trade we’re fostering is causing jobs to leave our economy. Free Trade sounds like a good thing, and it is… for companies. The companies only care about their bottom line, as evidenced by them moving factories to Mexico (thanks to NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement) or China where they can pay laborers dirt-cheap wages and then ship goods back here at reduced costs.

We need to fix our economy first by withdrawing troops from wars that were started because of lying leaders, protecting homeowners from deceptive lending practices, and by eliminating free trade pacts that cost Americans their jobs. Once we do that, I am sure the huge surplus our nation will see will be more than enough to enact universal health care for all.

 

[vern_humphrey]

I don’t like MSAs. The proposals I have seen are just a scam to divert the earnings of the MSA to the banks.

Huh?

Putting money in a bank is a “scam?”

You KNOW they are not going to pass on all the earnings of the MSA investments to the end user. You put $2000 into an MSA and you are NOT going to have $2080 sitting in the account at the end of the year if you don’t use it.

If you did, they would be paying 8% interest!!

They will intice you with the tax break, and the bank will walk away with the interest. Give me the tax break AND the interest, and I might change my mind.

And if you choose to use a bank, you must accept that the bank will not give you the highest rate of return.

However, it’s your money. You can choose your own savings vehicle. And at the end of the year, you roll over the remainder into your IRA, which can be anything you like – including stocks, mutual funds, real estate, and so on.

 

[ribozyme]

1. Paperwork makes up from one-third (in private health plans) to two-thirds (in government programs) of the total cost of health care. The use of this credit card approach would dramatically reduce the paperwork and result in lower costs.

Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Do you have any evidence that paperwork costs that much in government health care programs?

Could you cite ANY source and I am willing to read a Heritage Foundation paper if I have to in order to verify that assertion.

 

[mapleoak]

Don’t forget that socialized healthcare does not equal universal health care. We can have universal health care without government control of the system.

Socialized = government control
universal = everyone participates

How is this possible? How do make everyone participate without government control?

I don’t like MSAs. The proposals I have seen are just a scam to divert the earnings of the MSA to the banks.

MSA’s are actually a very good idea. Much better than PPO/HMO plans or medical reimbursement funds or dare I say it “Social Security”.

You KNOW they are not going to pass on all the earnings of the MSA investments to the end user.

Depends on who “they” is. You can choose whether or not to do your business with a smooth talking car salesman. Discretion and the insistence on getting the best bang for the buck applies here as well as it does to anything else.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Do you have any evidence that paperwork costs that much in government health care programs?

Could you cite ANY source and I am willing to read a Heritage Foundation paper if I have to in order to verify that assertion.

There are a variety of sources. there are several studies that indicate paperwork costs about $1,000 per person – every man, woman and child in the country – per year.

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/11/BUGM8FM8I11.DTL

Paperwork is 21% of health costs
$26 billion goes to administration each year in state

About 21 percent of private health spending in California goes to insurance paperwork, according to a report released Thursday.
The study, published in the current issue of the journal Health Affairs, investigated the cost to insurance companies, doctors and hospitals of billing and other administrative tasks, such as referrals and appeals.
That translates into about $26 billion a year in California, according to the study’s main author, Dr. James G. Kahn, professor at the Institute of Health Policy Studies at UCSF.

books.google.com/books?id=Rj_1OSxJeGcC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=paperwork+costs+health+care&source=web&ots=-f954OjlE9&sig=t2UVTJEL2okfZEkoYzeERFTXPto

Paperwork Cost Management

Do hospitals need to spend one-fifth of our funds on … in the United States on healthcare administrative costs by

Note that this document addresses funds spent in hospitals (where the paperwork is generated) and not in the insurance industry, where that work is mirrored by the people who process the hospital-generated paperwork.

cato.org/pubs/pas/pa211.html

The Varieties of Excessive Costs

The excessive costs of our current medical system can be classified into three major categories:

• The first, and by far the largest excess cost, is due to the current overuse of medical resources by patients. Overuse is the rational response of consumers who do not have to pay the entire cost of the medical services they use. The causes of those excess costs are Medicaid, Medicare, and tax laws that provide incentives for individuals to have their employers purchase their medical care in the form of private health insurance.

• The second category of excess cost consists of administrative and paperwork costs that are unnecessary for the provision of health care, but that have come into existence because of the current patchwork of third-party payers and their attempts to control their increasing costs by closely monitoring the behavior of doctors and patients. Even worse is the fact that those cost-containment activities do not seem to have contained costs very well.

• The third excess cost is associated with the fear of malpractice suits. Administering medically unnecessary tests and procedures helps to insulate doctors and hospitals from the potential wrath of patients or their families when inevitable accidents occur in medical treatment or when treatments just do not work.

Note how the second and third excess cost factors work together – “Administering medically unnecessary tests and procedures helps to insulate doctors and hospitals” by generating a paper trail to prove those tests and procedures have been done.

 

[jonhi]

Why can’t we continue to choose whatever we want now without government interference? As near as I can tell, we would just be replacing several inept care providers for a HUGE one with any form of single payer (show ONE plan that everyone would buy into that does not somehow involve the US gov’t in oversight or management). I just don’t want the conscription of my tax dollars to make the US gov’t the defacto health care provider. It is a matter of principle, not just economics- and I don’t want to gamble what I have now for less care (NO ONE is saying I will get better care than I have now, nor that it will save anyone any $).

 

[SoCalRC]

MSA’s are actually a very good idea. Much better than PPO/HMO plans or medical reimbursement funds or dare I say it “Social Security”.

I’m sorry, I don’t get the math. Health care has been experiencing 10-18% inflation for several years. No moderate risk investment structure can keep up with that. Also, there is the sheer cost. We are talking about the cost of a a median home, with the costs occuring at a potentially random point in life.

Also, you are talking about a financial risk pool of one. Private health insurance works by weathing normal financial fluctuations with a large pool. You have to use some higher risk investments to have a chance to keep up with medical cost inflation, but if you are a pool of one and get sick during a recession you are hosed.

MSAs are a great tax break for middle class and upper middle class Americans, but they aren’t the 40 some million people that have a real problem.

 

[vern_humphrey]

I’m sorry, I don’t get the math. Health care has been experiencing 10-18% inflation for several years. No moderate risk investment structure can keep up with that. Also, there is the sheer cost. We are talking about the cost of a a median home, with the costs occuring at a potentially random point in life.

And the way to get that down is to:

• Bargain for health care (which our present insurance based system discourages).
• Cut out the paperwork (and the insurnace company profits)
• Stop over-consuming.
• Pay on the spot.

Also, you are talking about a financial risk pool of one. Private health insurance works by weathing normal financial fluctuations with a large pool. You have to use some higher risk investments to have a chance to keep up with medical cost inflation, but if you are a pool of one and get sick during a recession you are hosed.

I see you missed the part about cheap, high-deductable catestrophic coverage.

If you exceed what you saved, that catestrophic coverage kicks in.

MSAs are a great tax break for middle class and upper middle class Americans, but they aren’t the 40 some million people that have a real problem.

I see you missed the part about assisting those who cannot save the full amount, or pay the full premium.