The lies of the left...MoveOn

[the DRIZZLE]

Huh? Are you comparing apples and apples, Medicare only covers the elderly and disabled, not universal coverage.

The point is, that single-payer universal healthcare is far mroe efficient than the private insurance industry, which exists only to perpetuate draining trillons in profits.

Lol now the insurance industry makes trillions in profits. Why don't you go the financial statements of some publicly traded insurance companies, it will tell you a lot about where the costs are. Like I said, the left wants to blame insurance companies for high healthcare costs, and the right wants to blame government inefficiency. The real problem is simply that people want more healthcare than we can afford, the majority of which comes in the last few years of someones life.

If we went to single payer and delivered the same amount of the healthcare the costs would be the same +/-5%. You could decide to reimburse doctors at $10 per hour to save more but see how that works out in the long run.

 

[RightIsWrong]

So why does Medicare/Medicaid cost so much to provide healthcare to so (relatively) few? If I understand Elfenix correctly and the numbers are accurate, the .gov should be able to provide healthcare to everyone for the same amount it currently spends on a few.

If we can have single payer for everyone for the exact same amount they are already currently collecting that would be real hard to argue against and probably should have been the hallmark of Obamacare. I wonder why it wasn't? No new taxes and I don't have to pay for health insurance anymore unless I want some sort of supplement to what the .gov offers, I don't know many people that wouldn't jump for joy if they were offered that.

Either the .gov isn't as efficient as you think or the Dems screwed the pooch worse than I could ever imagine. Myself and the vast majority of families I know would have effectively gotten a raise of $500-$1000+ a month. You put that kind of money into most middle class families pockets every month and you might actually get the progressive majority you so desperately desire. Again, with that kind of power at stake I would really appreciate hearing why they didn't or more specifically how the Republicans didn't allow them to do it even though the Republicans still tried everything in their power to block the abortion of a bill that did pass.

One of the primary reasons that it costs so much to cover a few is the cost of administration due to providers having to staff enough people that they have expertise in filling out the forms in the 50 different manners that private insurers instruct them to be completed in and then to refile after they auto-reject a good portion of those.

Then, of course, you have the cost of medication that is inflated by the government's inability to be able to collectively barter for better prices on medication.

But let's just ignore the reality of the situation so that we can keep allowing those that get the best healthcare possible, provided by the government for free, to tell us how horrible it would be to have government provided healthcare as an option for the rest of us.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

One of the primary reasons that it costs so much to cover a few is the cost of administration due to providers having to staff enough people that they have expertise in filling out the forms in the 50 different manners that private insurers instruct them to be completed in and then to refile after they auto-reject a good portion of those.

Then, of course, you have the cost of medication that is inflated by the government's inability to be able to collectively barter for better prices on medication.

But let's just ignore the reality of the situation so that we can keep allowing those that get the best healthcare possible, provided by the government for free, to tell us how horrible it would be to have government provided healthcare as an option for the rest of us.

The prescription drug part of medicare is only about 12% of cost of the program. Squeezing the pharmaceutical companies isn't going to make much difference in total Medicare costs.

http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/7305_03.pdf

 

[ElFenix]

I am not trying to pick an argument with you, in fact, I am not saying anything that the United States Government isn't saying. I don't make up these statistics, I am just saying what the statistics are and I gave the source of the statistics.

an unfortunate side effect of this forum is that even when not intending to be confrontational most posts come off that way anyway.

what i'm interested in for the moment is what percentage of heavy spenders spending mix is between .gov coverage and private coverage is.

reading through some of the stuff linked from AHRQ
http://www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_files/publications/st73/stat73.pdf
i'm writing notes as i come across stuff

while those age 65 and over
accounted for just under half (43 percent) of the top 5 percent of the
distribution, but only 4 percent of the bottom 50 percent.

so the heavy spending old people are a large portion, but not majority, of the big spenders. for the second half of that, i'm not sure what they're saying. is 4% of the bottom 50% 4 percentage points (so 4% of the population) or (0.04)(0.50)=(0.02)?

figure 3 is very close to what i want. the over 65 bottom 50% of the population is basically negligible because it's only 4%, so we can almost ignore it. though, it does provide an interesting contrast because a higher % of people who are in the top 5% also have private insurance than those in the bottom 50%. that is probably the same issue 20something have with health insurance, they feel healthy and so they don't tend to purchase as much as someone who doesn't.

a majority of big spenders over 65 have both private and public coverage. medicare gap coverage? pension or retiree coverage? a supermajority of big spenders under 65 have private coverage, but that it doesn't say who has private only and who has both private and public (medicaid).

figure 4 shows out of pocket expenditures, which would also be necessary. i'd consider those to be private expenses and to be lumped on top of insured expenses.



all food for thought, but i don't think it answers my ultimate question. :hmm: time to keep reading.

As far as fraud being part of overhead, you are absolutely correct, it is part of overhead. But fraud is not confined to government, you see it all the time on Wall Street, in big business, in insurance companies, and pretty everyplace else. You need only pick up a newspaper on any given day to confirm that. Hardly a day goes by without some scandal being discovered. Fraud seems to be running rampant in America, and it would be nice if we could put an end to the fraud, in ALL areas, not just government.

oh, i'm not at all saying that fraud only affects government, i'm just roundabout getting at the fact that fraud isn't considered an overhead cost by people such as congressman weiner. obviously, if medicare spending is $520ish billion, and there's $60 billion in fraud, total medicare overhead can't possibly be in the single percents.

One of the primary reasons that it costs so much to cover a few is the cost of administration due to providers having to staff enough people that they have expertise in filling out the forms in the 50 different manners that private insurers instruct them to be completed in and then to refile after they auto-reject a good portion of those.

so... tell the insurance companies to get together and come up with 1 form that they all use?

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

What a bad piece. It ignores the substance and nit picks a word.

It's the opinion of some that a plan like this can talk all it wants about how the future payments to citizens (or states) by the feds will always continue, but in the fact of massive debt and 'starve the beast' policies, it's very likely - and this is probably the plan as well - that those payments will go away.

Regardless, privatizing Medicare is 'abolishing' it as the program we know.

Even the article acknowledged points close to the Moveon statement:

Ryan’s 10-year plan has plenty to get worked up about. It would slash spending and deficits by the trillions, repeal the health care reform law enacted under President Barack Obama, and take aim at two mainstays Ryan and others say are headed for bankruptcy: Medicaid and Medicare.

Families USA framed it more cautiously, saying the proposal would "end Medicare as we know it by 2022."

So it would "take aim" at Medicaid and Medicare, and the source THEY cite said it would "end Medicare as we know it".

Ya, saying the plan would abolish Medicare is a real lie. When that's the best the right can come up with, it shows how badly they're on the losing end of the lie issue.

What, Moveon LIED. deny it all you want, but the lied and mis-represented the facts. Which is what they do because they know people like you will believe anything they say.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

BTW, what parallel universe do you live in where rightfully saying that Paul Ryan wants to end Medicare through privatization is uncivil? It's fact.

Or are we not allowed to tell the public the truth about Republicans' ideology? Are you that embarassed? And only a year after you were "accusing" us of taking away old peoples' Medicare, which is a program you're opposed to. I can't even wrap my head around it. And now Paul Ryan is actually trying to end Medicare, and you right wingers are mad... at what?? Either stand by your rightist ideology or STFU.

You can't be opposed to a program because it's socialist, accuse your political opponent of wanting to end that socialist program because he's socialist, and then whine because the left tells the public that you want to end the socialist program that you're opposed to because it's socialist!!!! ARGHHHH

What universe do you live in where you think the government can do it better?
Look at how bloated and completely fucked up every program the government runs is. The biggest threat to the United States is it's own Government.

 

[JimW1949]

an unfortunate side effect of this forum is that even when not intending to be confrontational most posts come off that way anyway.

I suspect you are right on that, but just the same if I came off as being confrontational or argumentative, I apologize for that. It certainly wasn't my intention.

Although we don't agree on everything, I think there are a few things we can both agree on.

I think we can both agree that if waste, fraud and abuse, could be eliminated in government and in the private sector, it would go a long way toward lowering the cost of medical coverage.

I think we can both agree on the fact that the elderly are the most expensive group to insure because they tend to have more medical problems than any other group.

I am also fairly confident we can agree that it would be next to impossible for the elderly to be able to afford the extremely large premiums it would take to provide them with medical coverage if they had to purchase the insurance from a private insurance company.

Now here is something else that maybe we should consider. Medicare (not Medicaid, I am only talking about Medicare) is not what I would consider to be an entitlement program. Medicare is something we have to pay for. For example, I have been paying into Medicare for many years now. When I reach the age where I am eligible to get Medicare, I will still have to pay for it because they will take the premiums right out of my Social Security check each month. So really, Medicare is not something that you get as an "entitlement", you get it because you have been paying into the system. For most people that will be for their entire working life and will continue on into their retirement years.



Now, depending on how long you live, you may, or you may not, receive more money in the form of medical care than you have paid into the system. On the other hand, you may die early and not get very much, if any, benefit from all the money you have paid in. From a practical standpoint, there is no way to predict how much benefit a particular person will get from Medicare, it's all pretty much a crap shoot.