The Way Forward: Repeal ObamaCare

[dblack]

You can opt out of auto insurance by using alternative modes of transportation. I'm sure dblack didn't mean driving illeaglly without insurance.

Not sure what you mean, but mandatory auto insurance is just as wrong as mandatory health insurance. Forcing people to tithe to corporate lobbyists is an abuse of government power.

If I take a bus to work, I'm no longer forced to buy auto insurance.

The ACA is much different. The only stipulation there is that I'm a living citizen.

I s'pose. But the principal is the same. If an activity is so dangerous that it represents a threat to society - fucking make it illegal. Otherwise, let people decide for themselves how to account for the results of their actions. This idea that the way to deal with public risk is to 'outsource' it to corporate insurance is poison.

 

[francoHFW]

So make less than 140% of the poverty line....

 

[Avorysuds]

Great thread G5, too bad reading most the far left responses is semi-retarded. I mean, admitting it's crap by saying "what does the GOP offer!!!" is just lolz.

Time will show Obamacare to be the horrific mess it is, no opinion will stop that.

 

[g5000]

That wasn't really a solution, and it points out the vapidity of the gop position (no personal offense intended). You proposed people should buy health insurance like other insurance. The workers not insured are lower income workers.

The government has driven up the cost of insurance through its policies and through its participation in the market. You don't see the cost of auto, home, or life insurance skyrocketing at the same rate as health insurance.

ObamaCare does nothing to bend the cost curve down, and actually more deeply entrenches things which bend it up.

If you were able to buy your health insurance in a truly competitive market, the cost of insurance would drop. Under the current situation, the government does not allow you to buy from any insurance company you wish. And most people are hostage to whatever plan their company offers. This means your company is a tiny pool of customers up against the insurance company. You're totally fucked on cost. In turn, the insurance company is geographically limited, making it hostage to the healthcare industry on cost. All because as an active participant in that market, the government gets to write the rules for its private sector competitors! You don't see the government tying its hands the way it ties the hands of its competitors. How fucked up is that?

And raising the retirement age would have a tremendous impact on the federal budget. If you work five years longer, that is five years more you pay into Medicare and Social Security, and five years LESS you draw out from them. We have had more than a literal doubling of the entitlement load since Social Security was enacted because we are living decades longer than our ancestors.

There is a HUGE fatal flaw in your thinking, and I mean FATAL, that is unless the 'invisible hand' is so magical, it can even heal...

The whole basis of a 'free market' is the buyer has leverage, i.e. he/she can take his/her business elsewhere. That works perfectly fine when the stakes are 'things' (cars or TV sets etc). But a person's health is not a 'thing', and the consumer's stake is their very life. An unhappy consumer can go buys a different car or TV. If a person has a life threatening illness and is denied coverage for treatment, WHAT leverage does that person have...take their business elsewhere IN ANOTHER LIFE?

A total crock. We buy LIFE insurance all the time. There is no reason for not being able to buy health insurance the same way we buy life insurance.

 

[g5000]

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

Here is a market-driven entrepreneur.

Bill Brody, M.D. President, Salk Institute for Biomedical Research

Dr. William R. Brody, an acclaimed physician-scientist, entrepreneur and university leader, joined the Salk Institute for Biological Studies on March 2, 2009 after 12 years as president of The Johns Hopkins University.

June 13, 2003

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

I recently spent a half-day in a meeting discussing a number of issues regarding Medicare. Most of us on the provider side of the street view Medicare as this multiheaded bureaucracy with more pages of regulations than the Internal Revenue Service's tax code. However, I came away from the meeting with some (to me at least) shocking revelations:

Medicare beneficiaries are overwhelmingly satisfied with their Medicare coverage, except for the absence of prescription drug benefits;

The administrative costs of Medicare are lower than any other large health plan.

In fact, Medicare is very efficient by any objective means:

According to the Urban Institute's Marilyn Moon, who testified before the Senate Committee on Aging, Medicare expenditures between 1970 and 2000 grew more slowly than those of the private sector. Initially, from 1965 through the 1980s, Medicare and private insurance costs doubled in tandem. Then Medicare tightened up, and per capita expenditures grew more slowly than private insurance, creating a significant gap. In the 1990s, private insurers got more serious about controlling their costs, and the gap narrowed. But by 2000, Medicare per capita expenditures remained significantly lower than the private sector.

Moon argues somewhat convincingly that Medicare has been a success. While not necessarily denying that certain reforms might be needed, she stresses the importance of preserving three essential tenets of the program:

1. Its universal coverage nature creates the ability to redistribute benefits to those who are neediest.

2. It pools risk in order to share the burdens of health care among the healthy and the sick.

3. Through Medicare, the government protects the rights of all beneficiaries to essential health care.

It has been argued that, in part, Medicare's cost effectiveness arises from the fact that it does not need to expend funds on marketing and sales-functions that are obligatory for the success of competitive, private-sector health plans. Moreover, some argue that the competitive model for health insurance has not been successful. In a market-driven economy, the healthy can and will change health plans for savings of only a few dollars a month, while the sick must remain in their existing plan in order to retain their physicians. Such behaviors lead to asymmetric risk pools and cost inequities.

This was all sobering news to a market-driven entrepreneur such as yours truly. However, given the perverse incentives that frequently drive behavior in health care, my take-home lesson is that there are examples in the success of Medicare we can apply to other sectors of our population.

I will say it again. The goverment health insurance is nationwide, and the government gets to hogtie its competitors. Pointing out the advantages of Medicare over its competitors is an open admission the government has fucked us all over.

Lower administrative costs? OF COURSE! It gets the advantage of economies of scale which the government prevents it competitors from having!

 

[LoneLaugher]

There should be no profit to be had when it comes to health care.

 

[g5000]

There should be no profit to be had when it comes to health care.

Thank you, socialist, for your penetrating analysis.

What about food? Another one of life's necessities.

 

[Oddball]

There should be no profit to be had when it comes to health care.

From where do you think comes the money for R&D into new medication and medical techniques, Uncle Karl?

 

[Oddball]

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

Here is a market-driven entrepreneur.

Bill Brody, M.D. President, Salk Institute for Biomedical Research

Dr. William R. Brody, an acclaimed physician-scientist, entrepreneur and university leader, joined the Salk Institute for Biological Studies on March 2, 2009 after 12 years as president of The Johns Hopkins University.

June 13, 2003

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

I recently spent a half-day in a meeting discussing a number of issues regarding Medicare. Most of us on the provider side of the street view Medicare as this multiheaded bureaucracy with more pages of regulations than the Internal Revenue Service's tax code. However, I came away from the meeting with some (to me at least) shocking revelations:

Medicare beneficiaries are overwhelmingly satisfied with their Medicare coverage, except for the absence of prescription drug benefits;

The administrative costs of Medicare are lower than any other large health plan.

In fact, Medicare is very efficient by any objective means:

According to the Urban Institute's Marilyn Moon, who testified before the Senate Committee on Aging, Medicare expenditures between 1970 and 2000 grew more slowly than those of the private sector. Initially, from 1965 through the 1980s, Medicare and private insurance costs doubled in tandem. Then Medicare tightened up, and per capita expenditures grew more slowly than private insurance, creating a significant gap. In the 1990s, private insurers got more serious about controlling their costs, and the gap narrowed. But by 2000, Medicare per capita expenditures remained significantly lower than the private sector.

Moon argues somewhat convincingly that Medicare has been a success. While not necessarily denying that certain reforms might be needed, she stresses the importance of preserving three essential tenets of the program:

1. Its universal coverage nature creates the ability to redistribute benefits to those who are neediest.

2. It pools risk in order to share the burdens of health care among the healthy and the sick.

3. Through Medicare, the government protects the rights of all beneficiaries to essential health care.

It has been argued that, in part, Medicare's cost effectiveness arises from the fact that it does not need to expend funds on marketing and sales-functions that are obligatory for the success of competitive, private-sector health plans. Moreover, some argue that the competitive model for health insurance has not been successful. In a market-driven economy, the healthy can and will change health plans for savings of only a few dollars a month, while the sick must remain in their existing plan in order to retain their physicians. Such behaviors lead to asymmetric risk pools and cost inequities.

This was all sobering news to a market-driven entrepreneur such as yours truly. However, given the perverse incentives that frequently drive behavior in health care, my take-home lesson is that there are examples in the success of Medicare we can apply to other sectors of our population.

All, of course, ignoring the fact that Medicare costs far in excess of 10X what it was projected to cost, when the program was put into place.

Reeeeeal cost effective.

 

[dblack]

There should be no profit to be had when it comes to health care.

Why not?

 

[DiamondDave]

There should be no profit to be had when it comes to health care.

Because you get to choose what service or product that you can make a profit at for your labor or your investment??

FUCK YOU

Goddamn government control freaks

 

[g5000]

There is a HUGE fatal flaw in your thinking, and I mean FATAL, that is unless the 'invisible hand' is so magical, it can even heal...

The whole basis of a 'free market' is the buyer has leverage, i.e. he/she can take his/her business elsewhere. That works perfectly fine when the stakes are 'things' (cars or TV sets etc). But a person's health is not a 'thing', and the consumer's stake is their very life. An unhappy consumer can go buys a different car or TV. If a person has a life threatening illness and is denied coverage for treatment, WHAT leverage does that person have...take their business elsewhere IN ANOTHER LIFE?

I will illustrate the flaw in your own thinking by substituting one word for another:

The whole basis of a 'free market' is the buyer has leverage, i.e. he/she can take his/her business elsewhere. That works perfectly fine when the stakes are 'things' (cars or TV sets etc). But a person's food is not a 'thing', and the consumer's stake is their very life. An unhappy consumer can go buys a different car or TV. If a person has no food and is denied free food, WHAT leverage does that person have...take their business elsewhere IN ANOTHER LIFE?

Competition is the key.

In order to make its own market participation look wholesome and viable, the government does not allow real competition in health insurance.

 

[Oddball]

The government does not allow real competition in health insurance so it can make its own market participation look wholesome and viable.

Gubmint is the absence of competition, as they are the ultimate monopoly.

 

[Bfgrn]

There should be no profit to be had when it comes to health care.

Thank you, socialist, for your penetrating analysis.

What about food? Another one of life's necessities.

Stuff the right wing 'socialist' ignorance. He is RIGHT. Can you tell me WHY most industrialized countries have strong state funding of single-payer universal health care, instead of insurance based health care tied to employment? Is Japan a 'socialist country?? America's health care is at the bottom of the heap. As a matter of fact the bottom four countries in mortality rates for the entire adult population (15-74) and for older people (55-74) are Germany, USA, Portugal and Switzerland. They all depend more heavily on profit-based, private health insurance provided primarily through the employer/employee relationship.?

No profit doesn't mean hospitals, doctors and medical suppliers don't get paid.

No where in our founding documents is free market capitalism even mentioned. It is an economic philosophy, not a form of governance. Our founding fathers HEAVILY regulated and controlled corporations. They were not laissez-faire capitalists.

Your comparison with life insurance is ironic, because in both cases the outcome is DEATH.

 

[Bfgrn]

There is a HUGE fatal flaw in your thinking, and I mean FATAL, that is unless the 'invisible hand' is so magical, it can even heal...

The whole basis of a 'free market' is the buyer has leverage, i.e. he/she can take his/her business elsewhere. That works perfectly fine when the stakes are 'things' (cars or TV sets etc). But a person's health is not a 'thing', and the consumer's stake is their very life. An unhappy consumer can go buys a different car or TV. If a person has a life threatening illness and is denied coverage for treatment, WHAT leverage does that person have...take their business elsewhere IN ANOTHER LIFE?

I will illustrate the flaw in your own thinking by substituting one word for another:

The whole basis of a 'free market' is the buyer has leverage, i.e. he/she can take his/her business elsewhere. That works perfectly fine when the stakes are 'things' (cars or TV sets etc). But a person's food is not a 'thing', and the consumer's stake is their very life. An unhappy consumer can go buys a different car or TV. If a person has no food and is denied free food, WHAT leverage does that person have...take their business elsewhere IN ANOTHER LIFE?

Competition is the key.

In order to make its own market participation look wholesome and viable, the government does not allow real competition in health insurance.

Epic fail. There is a huge void in your thinking. A market based transaction is based on shared stakeholders and also based on incentives. If a grocer wants to sell you produce, a market model is a perfect fit. His incentive is not only wanting the sale today, he wants you to come back. BUT, if you don't like his price or the quality of his product, the buyer is free to shop elsewhere.

If you have cancer, or need a transplant and your insurance company denies treatment, you can NOT go elsewhere. No other insurance company is going to insure you (preexisting condition and no accumulated premium intake).

The incentive for an insurance company is PROFIT. The best way to achieve PROFIT is to collect years and years of premiums, and NOT PAY OUT when a person has a major medical condition. The insurance company employes people whose job is to find ways to deny claims. As a matter of fact they are incentivized TO deny claims.

 

[healthmyths]

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

Here is a market-driven entrepreneur.

Bill Brody, M.D. President, Salk Institute for Biomedical Research

Dr. William R. Brody, an acclaimed physician-scientist, entrepreneur and university leader, joined the Salk Institute for Biological Studies on March 2, 2009 after 12 years as president of The Johns Hopkins University.

June 13, 2003

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

I recently spent a half-day in a meeting discussing a number of issues regarding Medicare. Most of us on the provider side of the street view Medicare as this multiheaded bureaucracy with more pages of regulations than the Internal Revenue Service's tax code. However, I came away from the meeting with some (to me at least) shocking revelations:

Medicare beneficiaries are overwhelmingly satisfied with their Medicare coverage, except for the absence of prescription drug benefits;

The administrative costs of Medicare are lower than any other large health plan.

In fact, Medicare is very efficient by any objective means:

According to the Urban Institute's Marilyn Moon, who testified before the Senate Committee on Aging, Medicare expenditures between 1970 and 2000 grew more slowly than those of the private sector. Initially, from 1965 through the 1980s, Medicare and private insurance costs doubled in tandem. Then Medicare tightened up, and per capita expenditures grew more slowly than private insurance, creating a significant gap. In the 1990s, private insurers got more serious about controlling their costs, and the gap narrowed. But by 2000, Medicare per capita expenditures remained significantly lower than the private sector.

Moon argues somewhat convincingly that Medicare has been a success. While not necessarily denying that certain reforms might be needed, she stresses the importance of preserving three essential tenets of the program:

1. Its universal coverage nature creates the ability to redistribute benefits to those who are neediest.

2. It pools risk in order to share the burdens of health care among the healthy and the sick.

3. Through Medicare, the government protects the rights of all beneficiaries to essential health care.

It has been argued that, in part, Medicare's cost effectiveness arises from the fact that it does not need to expend funds on marketing and sales-functions that are obligatory for the success of competitive, private-sector health plans. Moreover, some argue that the competitive model for health insurance has not been successful. In a market-driven economy, the healthy can and will change health plans for savings of only a few dollars a month, while the sick must remain in their existing plan in order to retain their physicians. Such behaviors lead to asymmetric risk pools and cost inequities.

This was all sobering news to a market-driven entrepreneur such as yours truly. However, given the perverse incentives that frequently drive behavior in health care, my take-home lesson is that there are examples in the success of Medicare we can apply to other sectors of our population.

All, of course, ignoring the fact that Medicare costs far in excess of 10X what it was projected to cost, when the program was put into place.

Reeeeeal cost effective.

None of you apparently have heard of EMTALA that started out as a "compassionate" "good intentions" but has now been part of snowballing health costs.

In 1986, Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) that if a hospital takes Medicare, they have to regardless of an individual's ability to pay. provide stabilizing treatment for patients.."

As a result as I've stated several times I've access to a database of 6,000 hospitals and specifically WHAT the hospitals BILL Medicare.. sometimes billing 6,000% above
the cost of providing the service! WHY???
To cover the EMTALA requirement! Medicare is OK because they know hospitals are recouping their uncompensated expenses that way!

SOLUTION is this...
Obamacare taxed tanning salons. Why not tax lawyers that have caused the $850 billion a year in defensive medicine out of FEAR of lawsuits!
With the reality there are ONLY 4 million truly uninsured as the idiots use 46 million of which 10 million are not citizens, 14 million already covered by Medicaid and 18 million that are under 34, make over $50k and don't want or need employers' insurance... this leaves truly 4 million!
10% of $200 billion in lawyers income equals $20 billion divided by 4 million truly uninsured.. PAYS for all the claims filed by hospitals for "uninsured"!

That simple solution...

 

[Bfgrn]

None of you apparently have heard of EMTALA that started out as a "compassionate" "good intentions" but has now been part of snowballing health costs.

In 1986, Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) that if a hospital takes Medicare, they have to regardless of an individual's ability to pay. provide stabilizing treatment for patients.."

As a result as I've stated several times I've access to a database of 6,000 hospitals and specifically WHAT the hospitals BILL Medicare.. sometimes billing 6,000% above
the cost of providing the service! WHY???
To cover the EMTALA requirement! Medicare is OK because they know hospitals are recouping their uncompensated expenses that way!

SOLUTION is this...
Obamacare taxed tanning salons. Why not tax lawyers that have caused the $850 billion a year in defensive medicine out of FEAR of lawsuits!
With the reality there are ONLY 4 million truly uninsured as the idiots use 46 million of which 10 million are not citizens, 14 million already covered by Medicaid and 18 million that are under 34, make over $50k and don't want or need employers' insurance... this leaves truly 4 million!
10% of $200 billion in lawyers income equals $20 billion divided by 4 million truly uninsured.. PAYS for all the claims filed by hospitals for "uninsured"!

That simple solution...

Trying to pull that shit again?

08-12-2012
Thread: Ending Medicare Ryan-style Doesn't Save Any Money

In 2008 Radiologists sent 151,703,266 claims for services to Medicare.
The total sent was $10.3 billion Medicare paid 78% of that or $8.02 billion!
FACT look it up as I DID!!! IDIOT

SOURCE: CMS/Office of Information Products and Data Analytics

So again explain WHY CMS (Medicare to you!) continued to report that the
they PAY 6,000% markups??

Tell me what city you live in and I'll show you what kind of markup that hospital charges Medicare!!!

If CMS is your source, WHY don't you provide a link? Do you have copies of the bills sent to Medicare, because when you DO THE MATH...the average claim is $67.90

10,300,000,000 / 151,703,266 = 67.89570371

 

[Oddball]

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

Here is a market-driven entrepreneur.

Bill Brody, M.D. President, Salk Institute for Biomedical Research

Dr. William R. Brody, an acclaimed physician-scientist, entrepreneur and university leader, joined the Salk Institute for Biological Studies on March 2, 2009 after 12 years as president of The Johns Hopkins University.

June 13, 2003

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

I recently spent a half-day in a meeting discussing a number of issues regarding Medicare. Most of us on the provider side of the street view Medicare as this multiheaded bureaucracy with more pages of regulations than the Internal Revenue Service's tax code. However, I came away from the meeting with some (to me at least) shocking revelations:

Medicare beneficiaries are overwhelmingly satisfied with their Medicare coverage, except for the absence of prescription drug benefits;

The administrative costs of Medicare are lower than any other large health plan.

In fact, Medicare is very efficient by any objective means:

According to the Urban Institute's Marilyn Moon, who testified before the Senate Committee on Aging, Medicare expenditures between 1970 and 2000 grew more slowly than those of the private sector. Initially, from 1965 through the 1980s, Medicare and private insurance costs doubled in tandem. Then Medicare tightened up, and per capita expenditures grew more slowly than private insurance, creating a significant gap. In the 1990s, private insurers got more serious about controlling their costs, and the gap narrowed. But by 2000, Medicare per capita expenditures remained significantly lower than the private sector.

Moon argues somewhat convincingly that Medicare has been a success. While not necessarily denying that certain reforms might be needed, she stresses the importance of preserving three essential tenets of the program:

1. Its universal coverage nature creates the ability to redistribute benefits to those who are neediest.

2. It pools risk in order to share the burdens of health care among the healthy and the sick.

3. Through Medicare, the government protects the rights of all beneficiaries to essential health care.

It has been argued that, in part, Medicare's cost effectiveness arises from the fact that it does not need to expend funds on marketing and sales-functions that are obligatory for the success of competitive, private-sector health plans. Moreover, some argue that the competitive model for health insurance has not been successful. In a market-driven economy, the healthy can and will change health plans for savings of only a few dollars a month, while the sick must remain in their existing plan in order to retain their physicians. Such behaviors lead to asymmetric risk pools and cost inequities.

This was all sobering news to a market-driven entrepreneur such as yours truly. However, given the perverse incentives that frequently drive behavior in health care, my take-home lesson is that there are examples in the success of Medicare we can apply to other sectors of our population.

All, of course, ignoring the fact that Medicare costs far in excess of 10X what it was projected to cost, when the program was put into place.

Reeeeeal cost effective.

None of you apparently have heard of EMTALA that started out as a "compassionate" "good intentions" but has now been part of snowballing health costs.

I don't buy the "good intentions" thing anymore....If their intentions were good and their programs ended up costing excessively more, didn't deliver what was promised and/or cause more problems than they were ostensibly intended to ameliorate, they'd be all for junking the "solution" and trying something else.

They're all about the power, plain and simple.

 

[LoneLaugher]

There should be no profit to be had when it comes to health care.

Thank you, socialist, for your penetrating analysis.

What about food? Another one of life's necessities.

You draw false comparisons.......like a seasoned nutter.

People only die of starvation in places where food does not exist. People die and suffer needlessly here in this country due to lack of affordable health care ( especially the preventive variety ) despite no shortage of care providers. Or....they go into huge debt or insolvency due to medical bills. An American tradition.

An otherwise healthy person faced with severe hunger will steal or scavenge available food. That is why we have zero hunger deaths in this country. One cannot steal or hustle for the care of a medical professional.

If one is unable to purchase or obtain food to the point of his or her health being compromised, nutrution becomes a health care component and should be covered with the same non-profit mechanism.

Socialist? How about you try harder.

Weak.

 

[PMZ]

All discussions of US health care need to start with: Can we afford to spend 2X any other developed nation for healthcare for only some of the people?

I can't see that we stand a chance of global competitiveness under that load.

Unhealthy people are unproductive and typically risk the health of those around them.

Obamacare is only part of the answer, but it's a good start. It's taken us decades to get that far. It was done in the absence of Republican input because that's what they chose. If they ever return to participative politics, I'm sure that they can find ways to help take the next step.

We are globally competitive with some of the population, those over 65 and veterans, and that's also part of the good start. If business can return to their former position as an active responsible participant in the rest of the problem, we'd take another big step.

Time to look forward, not backward.