Should Billionaires Even Exist?

[Redfish]

we are not the most expensive and we are the best. Would you rather pay 55% of your income to the government and have to wait months for routine care? Thats what they have in countries with socialized medicine, ask any Brit, Swede, or Canadian how the government run medicine works for them. It sucks.

We have the most expensive healthcare, and the 11th best.

Which countries have the best healthcare systems? | APRIL International

wow, a Bloomberg company did a survey. the countries at the top have very small populations, very little immigration, and very high taxes.

If you think thats a good way to live, move to Sweden or The Netherlands. Do it, and STFU with your inane criticisms of the best country in the history of the world.

Before Reagan deregulated the HMO Act we had low cost healthcare and were one of the best. Today, the corporate racketeers have taken over and we buy the most expensive healthcare in the world from the company store.

somewhat true, but the escalation in prices began when we all decided that insurance companies should pay ALL of our medical expenses. When I was young medical insurance was "hospital" insurance, you paid everything out of pocket except when you had to go to a hospital for a serious condition or accident. insurance did not pay routine visits or prescriptions.

and somehow doctors and hospitals still made a lot of money in those days.

Prior to deregulation of the HMO Act insurance companies DID pay ALL of our medical expenses. Case in point; My children were born in 1979, 1981, 1983, insurance paid 100% with no out-of-pocket.

Today, not so much.

yes, but it was HOSPITAL insurance, it did not pay for routine dr visits or routine prescriptions. Today they pay part of the hospital bill (which is inflated) and you pay the rest. but they pay for routine stuff with usually a co-pay from you. I don't see what we have today as an improvement, do you?

 

[Redfish]

We have the most expensive healthcare, and the 11th best.

Which countries have the best healthcare systems? | APRIL International

wow, a Bloomberg company did a survey. the countries at the top have very small populations, very little immigration, and very high taxes.

If you think thats a good way to live, move to Sweden or The Netherlands. Do it, and STFU with your inane criticisms of the best country in the history of the world.

Before Reagan deregulated the HMO Act we had low cost healthcare and were one of the best. Today, the corporate racketeers have taken over and we buy the most expensive healthcare in the world from the company store.

somewhat true, but the escalation in prices began when we all decided that insurance companies should pay ALL of our medical expenses. When I was young medical insurance was "hospital" insurance, you paid everything out of pocket except when you had to go to a hospital for a serious condition or accident. insurance did not pay routine visits or prescriptions.

and somehow doctors and hospitals still made a lot of money in those days.

Much like with house, renters, or auto insurance, your premiums reflect the cost of paying claims. Defensive medicine is a huge part why our insurance is so expensive, but even more are government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Medicare used to pay the entire bill for their patients. As money began to run out, they kept cutting reimbursements. The loss providers had to suffer was made up by private insurance. Back then, you only seen one doctor in most cases. Unless it was something the doctor couldn't figure out, only then you went to a specialist.

Thanks to lawsuits, your family doctor is only a referral agent. Unless it's something routine, they send you to see specialists for every part of your body even though they can easily treat the problem. The specialist has to cover their ass too, so they send you for every test under the sun.

When you have three times more doctors and five times more tests than we needed years ago, that cost adds up. That was the difference between then and today.

We had "defensive medicine" prior to the HMO Act being deregulated. Not at all expensive.

What has changed is health insurance companies own or derive profit from 95% of medical providers. Buying from the company store IS NEVER a good idea.

What we need is private, non-profit, single payer.

ask a canadian or brit how that system works for them----------------it doesn't

 

[Redfish]

Will Oligarch Bloomberg Outspend Clinton to Buy The White House?

Will Russia outspend Bloomberg to buy the White House?

How much did Russia spend in 2016? How much did the Clinton campaign pay Russians to create the dossier of lies?

Next question: which votes were changed as a result of russian actions? which states, which cities, how many votes?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Will Oligarch Bloomberg Outspend Clinton to Buy The White House?

Will Russia outspend Bloomberg to buy the White House?

I think you mean will Russia outspend China to buy the White House? You must be ignorant to all the dealings and scandals between Bloomberg and China. Before you make stupid and false statements about Trump, learn WTF you're talking about. I suggest going to Laura Ingraham's web site and watch some of her reporting on that. Then you can catch up to the rest of us.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Don't let CNN be the biggest contributor.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

We have the most expensive healthcare, and the 11th best.

Which countries have the best healthcare systems? | APRIL International

wow, a Bloomberg company did a survey. the countries at the top have very small populations, very little immigration, and very high taxes.

If you think thats a good way to live, move to Sweden or The Netherlands. Do it, and STFU with your inane criticisms of the best country in the history of the world.

Before Reagan deregulated the HMO Act we had low cost healthcare and were one of the best. Today, the corporate racketeers have taken over and we buy the most expensive healthcare in the world from the company store.

somewhat true, but the escalation in prices began when we all decided that insurance companies should pay ALL of our medical expenses. When I was young medical insurance was "hospital" insurance, you paid everything out of pocket except when you had to go to a hospital for a serious condition or accident. insurance did not pay routine visits or prescriptions.

and somehow doctors and hospitals still made a lot of money in those days.

Much like with house, renters, or auto insurance, your premiums reflect the cost of paying claims. Defensive medicine is a huge part why our insurance is so expensive, but even more are government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Medicare used to pay the entire bill for their patients. As money began to run out, they kept cutting reimbursements. The loss providers had to suffer was made up by private insurance. Back then, you only seen one doctor in most cases. Unless it was something the doctor couldn't figure out, only then you went to a specialist.

Thanks to lawsuits, your family doctor is only a referral agent. Unless it's something routine, they send you to see specialists for every part of your body even though they can easily treat the problem. The specialist has to cover their ass too, so they send you for every test under the sun.

When you have three times more doctors and five times more tests than we needed years ago, that cost adds up. That was the difference between then and today.

We had "defensive medicine" prior to the HMO Act being deregulated. Not at all expensive.

What has changed is health insurance companies own or derive profit from 95% of medical providers. Buying from the company store IS NEVER a good idea.

What we need is private, non-profit, single payer.

Lawsuits kept getting more prevalent in medical as time went on. As malpractice insurance kept rising, more and more doctors practiced defensive medicine. It's not that there are many successful lawsuits, but the cost to fight them is what drains the bank.

Not expensive? Doctors used to do what these specialists did years ago, so you only paid one person. Get two or three specialists involved, who also practice defensive medicine, it's six to ten times the cost to do what your family doctor once did. Yes, it is expensive.

More recently is the fact Democrats think they know everything. So as part of Commie Care, DumBama regulated that all medical insurance companies had to use 85% of their premium collections to pay medical claims. Insurance doesn't work that way. Insurance companies take your premium money and invest it. The profit from those investments help offset claims. Now that insurance companies can no longer do that, they mostly rely on premiums that generate much less profit, so of course they had to increase the cost of premiums.

Single payer won't help anything because it doesn't address the reason why medical care is so expensive in the first place. Much of it is because of government. As Einstein once said, only a fool would expect the entity that created a problem to come up with a solution to it.