Good post OP. I'm glad that you and your wife got everything straightened out. The thing is, as others pointed out, is that we don't have free market health care in this nation.
senseamp
Lifer
- Feb 5, 2006
- 35,787
- 6,195
- 126
Yes, this free market utopia doesn't exist and never will.
Reminds me of commies who were saying reason USSR failed is because they never really built true communism like Marx intended.
dullard
Elite Member
- May 21, 2001
- 25,111
- 3,481
- 126
I'm glad your wife is not sick.
Like others have said, this is not, and can not be a free market situation. The worst thing to consider is if your wife did have cancer and you lost your employer sponsored health care. Then what? You can have COBRA for a few months. Then what? What if your next job doesn't give insurance coverage, or their insurance won't cover pre-existing conditions, etc. You certainly have no chance to buy any individual insurance once someone in your family is sick. Your only chance is to keep rejecting jobs until you find one based upon insurance coverage (not based on pay or on work you wish to do) or go bankrupt. Our current system is not a system that works.
Also realize that we already have nationwide health care paid for by our taxes. We already pay for the majority of expenses (directly through medicare/medicaid/etc or indirectly through tax deductions). We have the costs, but we don't have the nationwide coverage. This is the part where the card carrying republicans fail. They don't want nationwide coverage in name, but they are willing to keep the current system that already has it in our taxes. The bi-partisian CBO stated that the senate's health care bill would REDUCE costs to the goverment, yet the republicans rejected it claiming that it is too costly. That just doesn't make sense. Democrats are just as bad on the issue for other reasons though.
Changes we need:
1) Get businesses the fuc& out of health insurance. Your coverage for your important things should be between you and your doctor (and your insurance company). Your manager or HR person at work should not be involved (by choosing the level of coverage available to you). Your job shouldn't be connected to your wife's health in any way, shape, or form.
2) Reduce doctor salaries by increasing the number of doctors. This includes nurses and technicians. Make doctors be paid a salary with bonuses based on results not on the number of tests/proceedures.
3) End medicare/medicaid as we know it.
4) End pre-existing condition blanket rejections. Force all insurance companies to accept everyone. But, they may be allowed to reject certain expenses. If you wait until you have cancer to get insurance, the insurance must accept you but covers everything but the cancer. This sounds harsh, but it is necessary and only a temporary problem.
5) Give a health care tax credit that matches the cost of high-deductible insurance. And then keep the government out of it from then on.
6) Tort reform is a small part of the picture, but it must be done.
7) Then we as a society need to end the idea of "added life at any cost". Costs including money, taxes, quality of life, etc.
8) End free treatments at hospitals and emergency rooms. If a doctor wants to do pro bono work, s/he can. But that is an individual choice.
Like others have said, this is not, and can not be a free market situation. The worst thing to consider is if your wife did have cancer and you lost your employer sponsored health care. Then what? You can have COBRA for a few months. Then what? What if your next job doesn't give insurance coverage, or their insurance won't cover pre-existing conditions, etc. You certainly have no chance to buy any individual insurance once someone in your family is sick. Your only chance is to keep rejecting jobs until you find one based upon insurance coverage (not based on pay or on work you wish to do) or go bankrupt. Our current system is not a system that works.
Also realize that we already have nationwide health care paid for by our taxes. We already pay for the majority of expenses (directly through medicare/medicaid/etc or indirectly through tax deductions). We have the costs, but we don't have the nationwide coverage. This is the part where the card carrying republicans fail. They don't want nationwide coverage in name, but they are willing to keep the current system that already has it in our taxes. The bi-partisian CBO stated that the senate's health care bill would REDUCE costs to the goverment, yet the republicans rejected it claiming that it is too costly. That just doesn't make sense. Democrats are just as bad on the issue for other reasons though.
Changes we need:
1) Get businesses the fuc& out of health insurance. Your coverage for your important things should be between you and your doctor (and your insurance company). Your manager or HR person at work should not be involved (by choosing the level of coverage available to you). Your job shouldn't be connected to your wife's health in any way, shape, or form.
2) Reduce doctor salaries by increasing the number of doctors. This includes nurses and technicians. Make doctors be paid a salary with bonuses based on results not on the number of tests/proceedures.
3) End medicare/medicaid as we know it.
4) End pre-existing condition blanket rejections. Force all insurance companies to accept everyone. But, they may be allowed to reject certain expenses. If you wait until you have cancer to get insurance, the insurance must accept you but covers everything but the cancer. This sounds harsh, but it is necessary and only a temporary problem.
5) Give a health care tax credit that matches the cost of high-deductible insurance. And then keep the government out of it from then on.
6) Tort reform is a small part of the picture, but it must be done.
7) Then we as a society need to end the idea of "added life at any cost". Costs including money, taxes, quality of life, etc.
8) End free treatments at hospitals and emergency rooms. If a doctor wants to do pro bono work, s/he can. But that is an individual choice.
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I mostly agree with you, though I think insurance is an unnecessary middle man in what we ultimately need. The reason our system doesnt work is because we are essentially trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole, ie forcing insurance companies to not act like insurance companies. Forcing an insurance company to accept anyone is akin to forcing a car insurance company to insure a blind driver, or a life insurance company to insure a navy seal. Once you do that, they are relegated to nothing more than middle men that skim margins off the top for their own profit. We need a single payer system. It would greatly reduce billing complexities and staffing needs at every medical provider. Private entities could certainly come into play in managing the flow of money, auditing, fraud detection, etc, but they would be under contract from the government to do so.
I am in complete agreement with YOU that right extremist ideologies are the HUGE part of the problem. Right from the start a hundred years ago when the Bull Moose Party had a form of universal health care as part of their platform.
Ok thats fantastic. Now now do you cover these blind drivers and navy seals once the government grabs control of it? Because now you have to. How do you do it and not spend a shitload of money? Increase taxes or reduce care. I guess I don't understand your reasoning. You admit the problem is insurance companies can't be forced to cover people but then somehow imply that if the government took over they would be able to do it. Through reduced costs due to better efficiency? Really? Have you seen any government program that runs as well as a private one? Who do you think has lower costs to help a distressed family - The Red Cross or FEMA?
We routinely hear how much money is lost in fraud in medicare and medicaid.. how much was lost from FEMA in Katrina.. etc. Yet you think the government is going to control fraud better than a private company? Contract it out to private companies? Why not do that NOW then with these programs? Because we don't do such things and WON'T do such things with UHC.
Billing and staffing aren't the problems with Healthcare. Its the COSTS. Its that every person who gets sick expects to be treated using the best equipment, the best doctors, and be treated immediately. Is that going to magically change when Obama runs healthcare? Or are we going to have to start cutting things to make it affordable? (Or increasing taxes).
Here's the other thing. Do you think Obama and the members of congress who vote for this are going to get the same care? LOL. No exceptions for congress or the POTUS. If the POTUS gets heart disease or needs a kidney, then he goes into the same queue as everyone else. Seems like that might be a nice motivation for them to get it right. If you went to a restaurant and asked the Chef to taste his food and he says he won't eat it, and goes to the restaurant next door, would YOU trust his food that he is telling you is OK to eat? So far nobody has convinced me that what Obama and the Democrats are serving up is nothing but a bunch of tainted food and THEY aren't going to be eating it so why should I.
Doc Savage Fan
Lifer
- Nov 30, 2006
- 15,456
- 389
- 121
A nice post, and somewhat similar to what I experienced. Sadly both my wife's tests and I came back positive. Luckily we were still under our parent's insurance (we weren't married yet, just engaged).
It makes life very, very difficult sometimes.
Dullard, the one problem I see with you using cancer as an example is that it's insidious. I likely had cancer for 6-8 months before it was severe enough to be detected. As I said, I was covered by my parents, but if I had just graduated college and was looking for a job, I would really have been screwed. Just something to keep in mind.
It makes life very, very difficult sometimes.
Dullard, the one problem I see with you using cancer as an example is that it's insidious. I likely had cancer for 6-8 months before it was severe enough to be detected. As I said, I was covered by my parents, but if I had just graduated college and was looking for a job, I would really have been screwed. Just something to keep in mind.
Blackjack200
Lifer
- May 28, 2007
- 15,995
- 1,685
- 126
The problem is that the people that are squeezed out are the people with the least power and the lowest visability. We're so isolated from each other that we don't realize how many people suffer from poor access to health care, and how easily it could be us.
Patranus
Diamond Member
- Apr 15, 2007
- 9,280
- 0
- 0
The free market system is the only fiscally responsible solution.
Health care is a limited resource. Limited resources have their costs dictated by the market.
Mr. Lennon
Diamond Member
- Jul 2, 2004
- 3,492
- 1
- 81
Even those that are fortunate enough to have healthcare don't always receive it. My mom had to fight tooth and nail to get her insurance company to cover pills that saved her life.
It took me 1 month to finally get an appointment with a knee doctor to check out my bad knee. It should not take that long to get a damn appointment.
It took me 1 month to finally get an appointment with a knee doctor to check out my bad knee. It should not take that long to get a damn appointment.
It's all fine and dandy to want cheaper access to healthcare. I agree that it should be cheaper. However, people don't work for free, and healthcare requires a lot of very specialized education, technical knowledge, and technology. I wouldn't want my doctors to be working for free, as then they would have no incentive to do a good job in order to garner referrals.
What most of you, and the people in D.C., are failing to realize is that high insurance costs are NOT THE PROBLEM. They are a SYMPTOM of the problem. The problem is the ballooning cost of health care which is caused by quite a number of things. Masking the issue by subsidizing insurance costs will not fix the issue and will only make it worse.
I will advocate and support any legislation from either side that actually attempts to solve the PROBLEMS with the healthcare industry, rather than simply masks the symptoms by giving people money. I will vehemently oppose any legislation from either side that does not attempt to fix the problem. Nothing I have seen out of either side leads me to believe that they want to actually attack the root causes of why health care is so expensive (hint: insurance companies and middlemen are not the primary cause, in fact the need for insurance companies at all is a symptom of the underlying problems).
What most of you, and the people in D.C., are failing to realize is that high insurance costs are NOT THE PROBLEM. They are a SYMPTOM of the problem. The problem is the ballooning cost of health care which is caused by quite a number of things. Masking the issue by subsidizing insurance costs will not fix the issue and will only make it worse.
I will advocate and support any legislation from either side that actually attempts to solve the PROBLEMS with the healthcare industry, rather than simply masks the symptoms by giving people money. I will vehemently oppose any legislation from either side that does not attempt to fix the problem. Nothing I have seen out of either side leads me to believe that they want to actually attack the root causes of why health care is so expensive (hint: insurance companies and middlemen are not the primary cause, in fact the need for insurance companies at all is a symptom of the underlying problems).
senseamp
Lifer
- Feb 5, 2006
- 35,787
- 6,195
- 126
Absolutely, but it matters who the parties are in the market. The government has more levers to get a better market price.
MovingTarget
Diamond Member
- Jun 22, 2003
- 8,999
- 109
- 106
You say that you will not support legislation that goes after the symptoms of the problems in healthcare today, only legislation that attacks the problem itself. What do you see as the root of the problems that we currently experience? What needs to be directly addressed by any healthcare reform bill? You don't seem to be very clear on that.
her209
No Lifer
- Oct 11, 2000
- 56,352
- 11
- 0
When your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, you're going to be paying a higher price than had you gotten it fixed at the mechanic of your choosing. Similarly, when you have a emergency, you have no choice which hospital/doctor is going to be providing care for you.
Tough cookies kid, our country is broke. Our country is NOT "better" than that. Especially not when there are starving Chinese willing to work 12 hour days just to stay alive. And you're fussing about the "expensive" cost of paying for the world's best healthcare, while you work your 40h job. Feh. Grow up. Life sucks a LOT MORE everywhere else, and none of us have any right to health care.
I'm uninsured right now and do NOT want the healthcare legislation passing.
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
- 26,907
- 173
- 106
This bill won't change much for the better.
What makes quality HC difficult to attain is high cost. This bill doesn't change that, it just shifts costs around. Too expensive is simply too expensive. No matter how much shifting, we're gonna have to deal with high costs. I predict if this bill passes our portion of GDP spent on HC will just go up. That is unsustainable.
I wish though that they would consider a government program for catastrophic HC.
Fern
You know these posts are so such a damn joke, really. Goverment run healthcare has far more examples that it does and can work well than failures. This bullshit notion that the government can't do a good job at regulating healthcare is just plain garbage. It works in CHIP, Medicare/Medicaid, Hawaii, Canada, and France just to name a few. Yes there is no perfect system, but it works. Where is your Patriotism and faith that we being the greatest nation on the planet can do this. Or is that Patriotism just a convenience when you want to spout some incoherent nonsense. Grow a spine for goodnes sakes.
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
- 26,907
- 173
- 106
We might be the greatest nation on the planet, but that doesn't translate into having the greatest politicians on the planet.
And you completely side-step my point that our #1 problem is high costs and our need to control them. No worries, the current bill(s) side-step that problem too.
BTW: Medicare & Medicaid are both suffering incredibly from high/escalating costs at an unsustainable rate.
Fern
Thats why we need reform. If costs is your number one problem how can you be against Healthcare reform. Regardless if we cover the uninsured or not, Fern this is a fact, the costs will continue to rise without reform.
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
- 26,907
- 173
- 106
I've never said I'm against reform per se.
But I'm against the two pending bills because they don't address HC costs in any meaningful way, they just shift costs around.
If our #1 problem is high costs, which I think pretty much everyone agrees with, and e.g. just shifting them to younger people by forcing them to buy inflated HI policies to pay for older less healthy people is no real answer to the cost problem. Eventually the cost problem must be tackled or the system will collaspe.
Employers are having a hard time with the every increasing HI policy costs. It's unsustainable. This bill doesn't address that, in fact it will make costs higher (because instead of crappy indurance irt will have to meet standards). That cost is gonna find it's way into the product, a type of "HI" inflation. Other countries seem to have lower costs, if so they will have a competitive advantage over us on the world market. Our business & profits may shrink yet our HC costs continue to rise. That's unsustainable.
Medicare & Medicaid continually take up more and money of gov revenues. They are part of Social security, which is now operating at a loss from what I understand. How can we continue with that? Neitehr bill helps with this problem.
So we have a broken HC model and Washington DC's solution is to extend it to another 30 million people (new customers for HI companies)? How does that make any sense?
It seems to me the logical place to start is controlling/reducing costs. After that's accomplished it would far easier finaancially to extend it to more people.
Health care is not expensive because they aren't enough customers to achieve economy of scale, yet that's how Washington seems to want to treat it it, and is the solution they're pursuing with these 2 bills. "Costs are too high! We must fix it by adding more people!"
Fern
Bitek
Lifer
- Aug 2, 2001
- 10,647
- 5,220
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Of course they have high costs when they are the insurance of last resort. Most of Medicare/caids patients are cast offs from the private ins system bc they are too expensive, ie the sick and the elderly.
Private insurance cos collect premiums from young working people through all their healthy years, then as people retire or become to sick to work, they are out of the private system but have high med costs, go get picked up by MC/MC as no one else would have them.
I would highly dispute the notion that we don't have a free market system. We have some regulation tinkering around the edges, but really there are thousands of HC plans for thousands of different employers, and the actions of employee's basing their employment in large measure on HC benefits. Ins plans work out their own networks and set their reimbursement policies. Hospitals setup their own treatment strategies to attract patients (customers) to their hospital, and doctors choose what plans to accept and hospitals to be associated with. In the end, all of it is profit driven.
Its a free market. Its a self-organizing system driven by profit which chooses its own risk tolerances, costs and benefits. Not liking the results of it does not give one liberty to call it different.
Bitek
Lifer
- Aug 2, 2001
- 10,647
- 5,220
- 136
BTW, my wife slipped and broke her leg in a freak accident this snowy winter.
Luckily we had insurance as we both still have good jobs.
Had we been effected by the layoffs our companies had and been unable to afford COBRA, or just ran beyond its limit, we would be choosing between having $50K of debt or learning to live with a broken leg.... No real choice there.
Luckily we had insurance as we both still have good jobs.
Had we been effected by the layoffs our companies had and been unable to afford COBRA, or just ran beyond its limit, we would be choosing between having $50K of debt or learning to live with a broken leg.... No real choice there.
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