Rigby5
Diamond Member
- Apr 23, 2017
- 31,994
- 10,783
But you just posted that most provided are not motivated by money.The only reason the VA has inferior doctors is that insurance companies over pay deliberately.
If you allow a government medical service to compete with private health providers, their charges will have to cut on half, and then so will what they pay doctors. So then VA doctors will be better quality.
The VA is vastly better health care than a quarter of the population gets now, which is none at all.
The VA is not at all known for any corruption. It is nonprofit, so almost can't become corrupt.
There is nothing you can pad.
The rate you suggest of $7 a week into a medical savings account would be $350/year, or only $17,500 after 50 years. That is not enough for much of anything, if you actually need surgery. That is more like $100k for anything significant. And while many will not need anything, those that do will need almost 10 times that much. So clearly medical investment funds need to be pooled and shared.
And no, insurance companies and providers do not lose a dime on the small stuff because you are already paying them cash, as they are less than your deductible.
The idea government keeps money effectively under a mattress is totally wrong.
We have a $22 trillion national debt we finance at about 5% interest, so the excess surplus from any medical surplus would go to paying down the debt, just like the Social Security surplus does now. That saves all tax payers huge amounts of money. There is no better investment for taxes than T-Bills.
Insurance companies are the least possible investment.
By forcing you to prepay, they eliminate any possibility for negotiating quality or cost, they deliberately cause costs to be more than double, and they are the most corrupt in terms of trying to get out of paying anything if they can.
And they skim off about half of what people pay in, as the profits they charge for administration.
In contrast, it is well documented that government services, like Medicare have a far lower administrative overhead cost, which is less than 10%.
Your example of the post office having only 1 clerk proves you are wrong.
The reality is that I have never seen more than 1 clerk at FedEx or UPS either, and yet FedEx and UPS charge more than double what the US post office does for the same size package and delivery times.
Anyone criticizing a long wait in a post office does not at all get it.
Any rational person wants long lines, because that saves money and allows for lower charges.
Lower charges is all I care about.
I just made a return to Amazon. I walked into the UPS store with the item only. I was the only person there. They took the item, packaged it, and sent it back to Amazon no charge to me. I'm guessing you never went to a UPS store or FedEx, because I've never had an experience with them similar to the post office.
Government pays about 2/3 of the bill for their patients. To recoup those losses, facilities increase their prices for everybody. They are prohibited by law from charging different insurances with different prices. I worked in the field for ten years, so I know.
Without private healthcare insurance, doctors and facilities would have nowhere to recoup those losses. This is why when you see doctors and clinics close down, it's usually in lower income areas where most clients are government covered and little private insurance to recoup those government losses from. It's also why institutions are refusing to accept new government patients. They can no longer take the loss.
I'm also assuming you missed my post where I worked for a company that was paying off the VA administrator, and I lost my job when the media got word of it. It was my employers largest account. Corruption goes on at the VA all the time. You must have not been focused on the news during the DumBama administration.
You keep rehashing the ACA concept. As long as we keep that going, nothing gets done and it just gets worse. Deal in fixes not problems. We both agree the whole system (?) is broken both with the ACA and non ACA. And you are right, in the low income areas, the clinics get hurt and hurt bad due to lack of funding. The question should really be, how do we get them funded properly. We have a clinic here. It must be doing well because it's been around for years. It charges according to your annual income. And yes, it does get funding from the State and Federals as well. It's done so well, it expanded not too long ago to include a Dental Clinic. But I can't afford to go to their Dental Clinic because of my insurance, their bill would be 4 times what I get from an authorized Delta Dental office who doesn't care what my annual income is. Most of the people going there are on some form of Medicaid which I am not eligible. They bill the State.
I bring up the clinics because preventive medical is far cheaper than waiting until the condition gets life threatening and then going to an Emergency Room. And who pays for those people doing that? We do through the Hospitals increase in rates that we have to pay. And you can count you Insurance as your money so you are still paying for them to misuse the ER like that.
Why Obamacare didn’t lower visits to emergency rooms
That is easy.
Because health care providers are still wanting to over charge, so are unwilling to take low paying new customers.
Insurance companies still maintain a monopoly by deliberately over paying.
So it is still hard to get access when providers lock out those who would pay less through ACA.
Did you have too much to drink tonight?
You are confusing doctors with health care providers.
The health care providers are the corporations that hire the doctors, not the doctors themselves.
Doctors do not do billing.