Let's debate Healthcare

[drebo]

So basically there should only be catastrophic insurance to cover major medical. How do you determine what and who is covered. I can understand catastrophic insurance, but should those who choose to abuse their bodies with cigarettes, alcohol, or drug abuse be allowed coverage?

Life insurance companies have already figured that one out. Major medical could easily do the same.

 

[cubby1223]

Double digit health care inflation should no longer be tolerated.

Cap the expenses, and you also cap the advancements.

 

[DietDrThunder]

Life insurance companies have already figured that one out. Major medical could easily do the same.

You are correct. That didn't even cross my mind. I forgot about the statistics gathered by the life insurance company (physical, bloodwork, weight vs. height, etc.), paid for by the insurance company, before a decision was made and they offered me coverage. If I had weighed 10 more lbs, that would have put me in a slightly higher risk group and I would have paid more. Being a non-smoker and good cholesterol levels really got me a good rate. Makes sense to do the same with major medical.

 

[Lemon law]

What a cop out argument Cepack has with, "I can understand catastrophic insurance, but should those who choose to abuse their bodies with cigarettes, alcohol, or drug abuse be allowed coverage? "

As if ALL health problems are due to abuse. Lots of health problem lie in our genes and they are no respecters of wealth or poverty.

And yes Virginia, preventive medicine and early diagnostics are far cheaper than waiting for a small problem to become a big and very expensive problem.

 

[crownjules]

Life insurance companies have already figured that one out. Major medical could easily do the same.

They already are moving towards those measures. Some plans are charging extra on plan premiums if you are classified as overweight. Others offer discounts or other incentives if you have a gym membership.

Like I said in another thread about UHC, Americans do not help themselves. Since the 1980s, the obesity rate in this country has skyrocketed to now where 1 in 3 people are overweight. The great majority of these cases are not caused by "genetics" but a combination of poor dieting and/or a sedentary lifestyle. HC reports show that heart disease is the #1 cost in the medical industry. Guess what preventable condition greatly elevates your risk for heart disease? Not to mention diabetes.

As if ALL health problems are due to abuse. Lots of health problem lie in our genes and they are no respecters of wealth or poverty.

There's a very notable, distinct difference between genetic predisposition and the well-known side effects caused by harmful substances being brought into our bodies. It's also not hard to tell when a person is using those harmful substances and increasing their risk to said side effects.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Yahct.

Yeah, I'm not even going to play in this one. Almost no one knows about health care here, but boy do they have strong opinions about that which they do not understand. Most think that health care and coverage are pretty much the same. Can't even get their terms straight.

We seem to have quite a few of Skoorb's one armed monkeys around here.

No doubt this will go the same as all the other threads, and that's south.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I'm not going to answer any of your questions because you refuse to look at the issue objectively or rationally. I've explained it all before in various other threads. If you want the answer, go look at them.

Everything in your post is looking at symptoms, not causes.

Uh, OK, if you say so.

 

[ElFenix]

i think we should get our terminology right and call it medical care first. then we can take appropriate measures of the medical care system and medical outcomes (not necessarily the same as health outcomes) and figure out what doesn't work/what does work. then we can talk about medicare care coverage.

 

[PrinceofWands]

I've been saying the same thing for nearly 10 years now. In fact it was my final econ paper in school. The very concept of insurance encourages inflation of prices, hurting the poor while benefiting the upper class..

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I've been saying the same thing for nearly 10 years now. In fact it was my final econ paper in school. The very concept of insurance encourages inflation of prices, hurting the poor while benefiting the upper class..

If you don't buy gas, then it will be 25 cents a gallon.

 

[xj0hnx]

The very concept of insurance encourages inflation of prices, hurting the poor while benefiting the upper class..

People putting everything from a bottle of ibuprofen, to routine check ups on insurance forces inflation. I don't think many people get that if you charge everything to your insurance than naturally prices of insurance are going to go up. It's almost treated as a health care credit card. Insurance alone is not the problem, it's the industry that has been created around insurance that's the hog. Absolving people of their responsibility, and blaming it all on the evil corporations will not fix anything either.

 

[Patranus]

The very concept of insurance encourages inflation of prices, hurting the poor while benefiting the upper class..

The very concept of medicare/medicaid encourages inflation of prices (for those not on the services) hurting those with insurance and benefiting those who do not pay taxes which support those programs.

 

[Schadenfroh]

One thing that will stop the rise in health-care costs is tort reform. Rein in the lawyers, insurance costs will plummet and cheaper medical care will follow. Plus, that might encourage potential law students to seek another field.

 

[EXman]

Again ....... lets not.

werd

 

[Ozoned]

One thing that will stop the rise in health-care costs is tort reform. Rein in the lawyers, insurance costs will plummet and cheaper medical care will follow. Plus, that might encourage potential law students to seek another field.

I agree, but there will be a poster that will come along shortly and tell you that tort reform will only save like .5% Cbo estimates the savings to the government (medicare) to be 54 billion over 10 years. The cbo does not take into account the 19-25% that will be saved by not having to maximize the practice of defensive medicine and the overwhelming administrative costs associated with tort.

The big problem with tort reform is that it will be extremely difficult to pass legislation that would be constitutional.

 

[EXman]

One thing that will stop the rise in health-care costs is tort reform. Rein in the lawyers, insurance costs will plummet and cheaper medical care will follow. Plus, that might encourage potential law students to seek another field.

Then how would John Edwards make all his money? Don't lawyers produce stuff and help make America great? No that is right most are just greedy bastards like the phen phen lawyers who got 400 million for their clients kept over 300million stashed some and then gave them checks for a couple thousand a piece but by endorsing the check they had to agree never to discuss how much compensation they recieved.

Lawyers give BIG to Dems so that is a non-starter.

 

[Zebo]

Too many hands in cookie jar to make real reform.

Doctors pulling in 1+Million a year
Lawyers pulling in 10+ million a year suing them
Medical device sales people making 500K a year
Insurance companies and associated industries making billions
etc etc etc

My advice is get healthy. Start running 45 min a day with heart rate in zone 4 on HRM. You may have to walk/run at first, but soon - you'll be able to run whole time and feel great. Improves all systems as well. Nervous, lymphatic, circulatory, digestive and so on. This way you die naturally in sleep someday without chronic illness that needs treatment by these bloodsuckers. I have not been sick in 10 years. No flu. No colds. No nothing but breaking shit occasionally in my legs which heals w/o doctors just a couple days off. I had terrible back pains from a serious accident quacks wanted to cut me open that has not bothered me since I discovered running. I was 320 lbs, lots of bulk fat body waiting to die of heart attack until I discovered running. Running saved my life. Physician, heal thyself!


Get a major medical policy in case you get hit by a bus. But technically you're covered even then by EMTALA so if you don't have kids or people who insist on insurance living with you I'd cancel those policies as well.

 

[Zebo]

I agree, but there will be a poster that will come along shortly and tell you that tort reform will only save like .5% Cbo estimates the savings to the government (medicare) to be 54 billion over 10 years. The cbo does not take into account the 19-25% that will be saved by not having to maximize the practice of defensive medicine and the overwhelming administrative costs associated with tort.

The big problem with tort reform is that it will be extremely difficult to pass legislation that would be constitutional.

No it wouldn't. Loser pays. Lawyers/clients would think twice before taking a case where they would have to pay both sides in event of loss. Now it's risk free - wail away and see what sticks or who pays. 99% don't even go to court because they are chump change 30-80K which is not worth expense of fighting. It would be if plaintiff had to pay.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Yahct.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Then how would John Edwards make all his money? Don't lawyers produce stuff and help make America great? No that is right most are just greedy bastards like the phen phen lawyers who got 400 million for their clients kept over 300million stashed some and then gave them checks for a couple thousand a piece but by endorsing the check they had to agree never to discuss how much compensation they recieved.

Lawyers give BIG to Dems so that is a non-starter.

Most lawyers, at least most people with JD degrees, earn far less than $100,000/year and a great many of them are unemployed or underemployed-and-involuntarily-out-of-field. Why? Since people thought (and still think) that law is a great profession, people flooded into the law schools. In response greedy colleges with visions of tuition dollars opened up new law schools and now there is a tremendous glut of highly-educated, indebted, and impoverished JDs in the legal job market. (These poor souls are often well-meaning, hard-working, intelligent people from modest family backgrounds who were merely seeking a legitimate ladder of upward mobility who will now be saddled with non-dischargeable student loan debt for the rest of their lives.)

It's understandable that the buffoonish and ignorant general public despises lawyers since the only time they ever need them is when something bad happens in their lives (criminal prosecution, injury, divorce, etc.).

In reality lawyers are a hallmark of a civilized and orderly society. If your nation has many employed lawyers, it's probably a good thing--it means that your nation has abundant economic activity and that there is wealth to protect and to squabble over. It's been said that the U.S. has the most lawyers in the world, however the U.S. also has the world's third largest population and one of the world's largest and wealthiest economies. Businesses, especially large businesses, need lawyers for a number of tasks.

Lawyers are certainly easy targets for the public to spit on, however, if you are ever wrongly accused of murder or rape or child molestation or embezzlement or some other crime, you sure will be glad that you can hire a good lawyer to help defend you. It's better than just being thrown in jail or thrown to a lynch mob. If you ever need to sue your insurance company or if you are injured and need compensation, you'll be glad that you can get a good lawyer to represent you as opposed to being SOL.