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Health Care Reform
It appears that today might be the end of a very long road to health care reform. There's been a lot of debate on the subject really leading back before the election. The mainstream sounds like an echo chamber, so I'm hoping you guys have better insight. Will this bill do what the administration claims to do, or is it as bad for the future of America as Fox says?
Nothing is as bad for the future of America as Fox says.
BTW, I've seen thousands of comment trolls, but I think this is the first story submission troll I've seen.
If you really want to fix healthcare, do tort reform first. Then break up the AMA cartel. Then look at other things that may need to be changed.
Is there anything that the government runs that really functions correctly/efficiently?
It is a desperate grab for tax revenue to shore up a faltering budget.
Real health care reform would either include a single payer system or a rational free-market plan. Nether party is willing to do this, however. I wonder why...
But then everyone knew that already.
I expect it will at least mitigate my issues getting health insurance after getting kicked off my parents' plan, so there's that.
As for the Republicans' complaints, I'm not really clear on what there is in this bill the Republicans didn't argue for. If the left had written the bill, it would dismantle the insurance industry and set up single payer. The only thing it's missing is tort reform, and the fact is that tort reform is a red herring. It accounts for 1-2% of healthcare expenditures, and that sounds about right. There should be a process for handling legitimate malpractice claims, and it's never going to be free.
Slashdot is packed with the entitlement generation and you're asking if they approve of the government creating another entitlement? Might as well go to Hell and ask the Devil if sinning is bad.
The Americans really need a single payer system like the rest of the world, so no this is not the correct way. However it think it appears a lot better than the current mess they have.
It's nothing like the health care bill we should have had, something to create a health care system comparable to other modern countries. The Democrats have no backbone and kept watering it down and morphing it until it was only vaguely acceptable to just barely enough of them to possibly pass. This sort of thing leads to awful legislation.
The Republicans, of course, are chanting "wait, wait, this is being rushed," but the facts are that they had years in which they could have pushed through health care reform - years where it was clearly necessary. Despite what they say, your average Republican simply doesn't believe in health care reform, which is why it didn't happen under Clinton and wouldn't happen under Obama if they could figure out a way to delay it. So instead of pushing for a fiscally responsible and conservative health care reform, the Republicans are really pushing for the status quo, without trying to seem like they're doing that.
Both parties stink. I'm kind of hoping this passes, but then the Republicans come into power. It'll be impractical for them to repeal this, but perhaps they'll be smart enough to tinker with it to make it better. Past history is not encouraging, though.
As you might expect, this bill is heavy on the benefits and light on the necessary pain. There's virtually only one effective cost-control measure, the tax on high-cost health benefits, and that has been pushed off so far in the future that it will be killed before it sees the light of day. The bill recognizes that coverage of pre-existing conditions requires an individual mandate, but then implements it in a half-assed way that won't achieve the objective of forcing healthy people to get coverage. (It also puts a dual drag on job growth by both raising taxes on private investment and directly increasing the cost of employing people. Way to go.)
I would much prefer a bill that provided funds to the states to let them structure their own solutions to the health-care problem, as Massachusetts has done. But the top-down command-and-control midset in Washington is too strong for that.
It won't do anything. This will go down as the 2010 Health Insurance Bailout act. Few Americans who currently don't have insurance will be helped, and few who do will notice one iota of difference. The largest group of people who will see positive change from this is the top executives at our health insurance companies.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The evidence for the efficiency and quality of government-run healthcare in other countries is indisputable.
However, too many people have been making money hand over fist in the US to let any system where they would be the cut cost pass. Overall, it's an opportunity for the government to provide what the market cannot. Either affordable healthcare or writing into law corporate profits. I don't trust our congressmen to avoid the latter.
You know the AMA only represents about 20% of physicians right? And they are actually usually very conservative and have blocked health care reform in the past? Which is one of the reasons they don't have more doctors as members.
How has private industry done so far with american healthcare? Cost more, gets less. Yup, that is a sign of success.
Oh and how has private industry been managing the economy?
It kinda amazes me that people with a healthcare system that is useless in the middle of a global recession all under the management of private industry, then dare to ask whether government can run things.
Imagine a discussion in North Korea: "Can private industry be expected to handle food production?"
Answer: "Who knows, but the question is silly when the current system is such an obvious mess".
Sometimes you got to take a chance. Do anything because when you are nose deep in shit, chances are anything is an improvement.
Can the government do a better job? It would be hard to imagine how they can screw it up even more.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There's only one thing you need to know and the rest is pure diversion:
The taxes start now and the benefits start later.
The reason this bill is being shoved through against so much opposition is because the government is frantically trying to raise tax revenue before the debt black hole sucks them in. Too bad we've already crossed the event horizon.
Your supply is high. In the UK we have 1.5 doctors per 1,000 people, in the USA, 2.4. Of course, we treat our doctors like crap.
The USA spends more per head on medical care than the rest of the world but gets poorer service. Either your efficiency is really low, or too much is getting creamed off the top as profit.
Part of the efficiency problem is that due to your liability culture you throw too many tests and treatments at things.
Part of the profit problem is that your medical system is run like a business that considers 15% a low profit margin.
From our perspective (I'm a health policy person based in Europe), US health care is staggeringly expensive, very variable, and very unfair. It's the single biggest cause of personal bankruptcy in the States.
Your health is poor, overall, especially you have poor child health, and relatively poor maternal and infant health.
A large part of your population have no access to good quality health care, and this imposes large costs on your society.
Your major companies find high health care costs for staff a major burden, and this sharply reduces the competitiveness of good US employers.
You have the highest administrative costs for heath care that I know of, now running over 30%, and at current rates of increase, in thirty years you will be spending 100% of your GDP on health services.
At the top end, there is no better health care anywhere for acute illnesses, but very few people can access this.
The proposed changes are a start, and only a start. With no public option, there is a real risk that the insurance companies will continue to combine together to rip you off. However, the current proposals will save a lot of money over the next decade, which is why the insurance companies are spending millions buying ads, and influencing politicians to stop the change.
I hope it passes!
-- Anthony Staines
I do not have anything of actual use to say about this bill, other than common talking points, unsourced blather about what this bill will accomplish, and vague appeals to antiauthoritarianism. But please mod me +5 Insightful like you're doing with everyone else, just to be fair.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
If the health care reform plan goes through then it signals the end of civilization as you know. Just look at where I am from, Canada, where we introduced universal health care in 1962. Since then, we've been living in barbaric fiefdoms, the likes of which have not been seen outside of the Hyborian kingdom.
Part of the problem is a McDonalds on every fucking street corner.
Living With a Nerd
If I take what you're stating correctly, then Article 10 would also be able to shoot down Medicare, Fannie/Freddie, the NEA, the DOL.... NASA. In other words, it sounds right, but ever since the Civil War, I don't think it's been enforced in the manner you describe. There are specific exceptions in case law when dealing with commerce, and with health care spending in the top 5, it's a pretty easy out for the SC. I think you need look no further than the DEA's position on medical marijuana laws to realize that the 10th isn't that powerful. I'm not arguing that the 10th shouldn't be the law of the land, just that it plainly isn't, and a court challenge on strict 10th amendment grounds would cause an upheaval to the federal government.
most of the time I pay CASH (about $200 a year), which means I deal *directly* with my doctor.
I live in a country that has government-run universal insurance, and I deal *directly* with my doctor, too. I'm not sure why you believe this isn't possible.
As i understand it, the bill has 3 major parts
1) a whole bunch of programs to evaluate new ideas; basically grants to researchers of one sort or another
2) regulations to rein in the bad behaviour of insurance companies
3) provide insurance to 30 million people who now lack it
lets leave 1 aside and look at 2 and 3
Do you really think that this bill will stop the insurance companies ? For instance, there is a section (109 in HR3967) that bans lifetime benefit caps. and you can read it yourself, and it looks pretty straightforward. I don't know how the insurance companies will get around it, but htey have, literally, hundreds of millions of dollars to buy armies of lawyers and lobbyiest and politicians to overturn this over the next 5-10 years
So my conclusion is tthat at best, (2) will have some moderate effect over a few years
As to 3 - I think what will happen, based on the MA model(I live in MA) is that yes, there will be a lot of people who will get insurance, but we won't have the money to pay for it. So, to save money, we will make this new insurance cheap and not very good (eg, low payments to doctors and hospitals, so only really bad hospitals will take people on this plan), so what will wind up happening is that we will create a permanent underclasss of people who have "insurance' that doesn't really work - it is like poor people who get charged with a capital felony crime; we pretend to provide lawyers, but dont' do anything really effective
If you look at the down side, it is Huge.
Obama is instituting a new national policy - health care, a basic fundamental right ina civilized society, is providd by for profit companies, and the FED. Govt requires you to pay these for profit compnies its horrible
Another way to look at this is Obama's track record, say with the wall street bail out, where he made sure bankers got their million dollar bonuses - with tax dollars that came from your pocket.
how on earth could anyone trust this guy with a track record like that ??
Read it for yourself. What I read is a wet dream for the insurance companies and penalizes anyone who is self-reliant.
I have catastrophic insurance, so if I get cancer and my bills go over $20,000 then THEY will cover the cost.
That's what they want you to think. Of course, fighting a lawsuit when you're the one who has cancer and five-figure bills to pay, while the other side has a large legal department specialized on just that kind of case, is going to be fun.
Catastrophic health insurance is a scam.
It amazes me that with the high percentage of negative public opinion on the health care bill that congress is still considering it. This is supposed to be government by the will of the people, right? To me, the will of the people is not being executed here.
Also, this is apparent in the back door manner in which they are trying to pass the bill by some trick of house/senate rules. This isn't some bill to appropriate a few million dollars for federal park support but a bill involving a trillion dollars of outlay. Given the current administration's massive spending and addition to the national debt with little to show for it, does anybody have any real confidence that this will work?
Some comments on health care industries making money hand over fist. Everybody seems to be in an outrage with doctors making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, but nobody bats an eye when some sports star signs a multi-million dollar contract. If you were going to the hospital for open heart surgery, would you want the lowest paid doctor that has no incentive for good performance cutting you open? I'd want the super-star doctor that drives the Porche. If he's good enough to earn that much money, he's got to be worth his salt.
If they were really serious about health care reform, why didn't they start with the biggest money issue in health care: tort reform. Why? Because Congress is made up with a bunch of lawyers that don't want to see their industry lose out on billions of dollars per year in fees brought about by the misery of other people. People are incensed about million dollar bonuses at financial firms, but nobody shines the light on lawyers that, for the amount of work put in, end up making thousands of dollars per hour in a settlement or ruling. Consider, also, that even though that doctor is making a quarter of a million dollars per year, he's paying 25 or 30 percent of that in malpractice insurance to protect himself from every Tom, Dick and Harry that decides to sue because they didn't follow instructions and ripped their stitches out.
Some lawyers are a blight on society, but unfortunately, their buddies are crawling all over Washington as lobbyists or in Congress/DoJ/White House/etc. The more I think about it, the more I agree with what Get Out of Our House is doing.
Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
The healthcare bill is so huge and complex that it is difficult to have any intelligent debate over it. People mostly make simple, sound bite sized remarks. Very few people seem to understand the bill. I don't understand it myself.
That said, the conventional wisdom states that the bill will be extremely expensive, on the scale of Social Security or Medicare. While I agree the current health care system leaves a lot to be desired, I think the timing is terrible. Our financial house is not in order and the economy seems to be in the middle of a long term case of fatigue. In short, I don't think we can afford it. I'm worried it could be the straw, or bale, that breaks the camel's back.
The reality is that the government doesn't seem to get anything done. I recall Arlen Spector saying that the patriot act was flaws, but he would vote for it as is and fix it later... Well as you can see, no one has really changed it to fix it. In 1992/1993 when Bill Clinton tried to make health care, no one agreed with him and he couldn't pass the bill. The republicans that later got in control of congress failed to make another health care bill. I think it will be similar with this bill. The republicans are calling to scrap the bill and start over, or why the hurry. But pretty much they (and the democrats who vote no) will forget about it.
Still a lot of provisions I don't like. For example if you get cancer you are screwed with a 5 million per year benefits cap. But then again my insurance at work has a 5 million dollar lifetime cap, so I am even more screwed. People like my brother who didn't go to college and work at hourly jobs without benefits need this bill. He doesn't make enough money to afford health insurance, and the company does not provide it. So there's really nothing he can do. If he gets poison ivy, even real bad, he has to sit at home and suffer rather than visiting a doctor to get a prescription for a cortico steroid that could cure it. That's not right.....
Also an awful lot of personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills. There was a time when I graduated college and I was unemployed for almost a year before finding a job. If I got into a traffic accident or I broke my foot jogging, I would have been in deep trouble. Sometimes surgeries go into the hundred thousands or even millions.... I don't have that kind of money. Even now, if I got cancer and went over that 5 million lifetime cap on my company's insurance, I'd have to somehow borrow massive amounts of money that I would never pay back, or just die... Any system that doesn't value human life over all else is broken....
This bill pretty much sucks. The more provisions I see of it, the more I hate it. Also the parties are busy taking pot shots about things like abortion funding instead of fixing the bill. I don't really care about abortion funding. Most Americans don't give a damn either except for a few religious right nuts. I just want a bill that gives me some security that if I lose my job and get sick, I'm not going to have to declare bankruptcy or suffer with my illness until it gets better or I die......
Considering the Trillions we spend on wars, I think one trillion for health insurance is worth it. It is an investment in the american people... And unfortunately if this shitty bill doesn't pass, the same thing that happened in 1992-1993 will happen again, people will scream it is the other party's fault, and then it will go away..... But it's a shitty Bill for sure. It is overly complicated, probably on purpose so that no one can read/understand the whole thing before voting on it. I'm sure there are lots of special interest payments in here......
It also does nothing to address the over charging on medical supplies. Ie the $500 paperclip. Not only that but when you don't have insurance all the rates are way higher than the rates negotiated with insurance companies. So not only is it harder to pay, it is even more expensive without insurance. Because those companies have people to say $500 for a paperclip, you're full of shit, we'll give you $1 and the hospital will be like okay, we still make $.95. And the people doing the billing try to double/triple charge me all the time. The insurance company and hospital billing often fight for 6 or 7 months before they get the entire bill properly worked out........ The hospital will bill twice, the insurance company will see two bills and reject all the bills, etc... Then you have to act as mediator to teach the hospital how to code the bill....And the insurance company to be ready for a payment....it wastes a long time.... By yourself you don't have a chance.... The rates are crazy too. I was well over $1,0
The morality issue that the health insurance industry is set up to rape its "customers" at the cost of their health?
There's a reason why every other civilized nation has publicly funded, universal health care - the government of a state, no matter how inept it may be, is in place to serve the needs of its citizens.
Private health care, no matter how competent, is in place to generate profit for the private corporation operating it.
The primary lever operating on a public-run system is voter outrage. This tends to apply pressure on the government to improve the system for the benefit of customers.
The primary lever operating on a private system is the generation of profit. This tends to apply pressure towards raising costs and reducing services.
The current American system is defective by design and is ruining the health of your citizens. And the shills of the insurance companies have convinced a large portion of you that it is immoral to try and fix the system. THAT is what you should be outraged about - that you have been successfully PSYOPed into believing that universal public healthcare is somehow immoral and wrong.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Study after study has completely debunked the myth that high malpractice insurance is due to frivolous lawsuits. High malpractice insurance is for the same reason their is high medical insurance. The insurance companies made bad investments and lost their shirts now they're raking everyone over the coals while still pulling down 20 to 40% profits.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
The "truth" is, the same people that want anything the Obama Administration does to fail are the same people that created the Third Largest Government Agency.
How has that worked out? And where was their outrage over its creation and its current status of operation?
Try sending a letter or small package through the USPS, UPS and FedEx and let me know which one was more cost effective.
Now try building a straw man and knocking him down.
I like microcars
The major lawsuit-related driver of medical costs is not frivolous suits. It is jackpot verdicts, where someone with no lasting harm or even short-term disability can be awarded tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive and other special damages. Because the number is big, jurors think that this sends the right message, and because a faceless insurance company will pay most or all of it, they're not afraid of the costs it will incur for the doctor. That's why tort reform usually tries to impose caps on damages, and that in turn is why courts usually throw the laws out (because the laws are seen as a legislative infringement on the judicial function).
This is not a 'health care reform'.
This is not even an 'insurance reform'.
What is going to pass is a few regulations that are supposedly going to make it not possible for an insurance company to drop coverage, to do rescission and a few more items. - This is good.
Here is what you are not going to get:
1. No optional public insurance against private insurance, the prices will not go down. Worse than that, what is happening is private insurance is raising prices to offset any of the new changes that will be coming with this 'reform'. Does not look good.
2. You probably are going to get a mandate, which is unfortunate given that you will have no public option. You will be forced to buy into expensive private insurance, there will be no choice or it looks like you will get some sort of a fine. Does not look good.
3. No cheaper drugs imported from other countries. The bill was introduced earlier this fall, but Obama actually killed it very very personally because he signed a deal with the manufacturers to do this: no competition from cheaper imported drugs AND the patents are to be extended from 5 years to something like 12 years. Does not look good.
4. Looks like US is one of the backwards countries that will try to limit women's access to health care they need. You going to get the 'reform' that will prevent any private insurance coverage for women that includes abortion. This is no joke, even for those who have coverage today, looks like they will actually lose it with this 'reform'. Does not look good.
The other part of it, the cost of it, that's a moot point. It was calculated that if Medicare was provided as a buy in for anyone at all, at cost (at cost - means whatever it costs, but no money is made for profit), or if there was a public option, then the reform could even save money. The way it is going to happen with no public negotiations with hospitals, no public negotiations with drug manufacturers, no import of cheaper drugs, no generics because the patents will be extended, well, I don't know if this will be cost neutral. It does not matter really, if US just cut its WAR cost, it's defense contractors costs they could probably fund the entire reform in health insurance and there would be enough money for the public education reform. Of-course that's not going to happen.
Anyway, Pelosi and Obama and the rest of them are lying sacks of shit. They do not want to take a vote on the public option, they will not take a vote on Grayson's proposal to just allow anyone to buy into Medicare at cost. This is not a health reform, this is just a little chunk of 'change' you were promised. Take it and be happy, cause you are not going to get anything better at all.
You can't handle the truth.
This isnt communism. Read the bill.
Its more fascism. This isnt a government run health care program, its a mandate that buy private insurance from the insurance industry.
Thats not quite communism.
And Single Payer, Universal health care wouldnt be communism either, anymore than the military would be. Not that this bill is Single Payer. The democrats failed to bring real health care reform. What we are left with is a corporate welfare bill, that the democrats will praise like the republicans praised no child left behind and the patriot act. This not to say I support the republicans in anyway. More so that the democrats are just as lame and bought out by the corporations we ask them to regulate.
For some reason SOME people are ok with spending all of our money on military defense, but when it comes to spending it on health defense... certain people cry communism.
Brain-washing and indoctrination.
Listen. Just because the person you meet and discuss intimate details with at the "doctor's" office is wearing a lab coat and a stethescope, it doesn't mean he or she is a doctor. They are actually just civil servants who have hidden microphones and very discrete ear pieces, that allows what you're telling them to be heard by a 13-person death-panel, who will then instruct the "doctor" what to do.
The death-panel consists of:
This is how socialized "medicine" works. The only medicine involved with it, is making sure your body is sold off in parts to raise money for the party leaders! WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ROSES! Actually, those aren't roses but the perfumes used to cover up the stench of rotting corpses in the streets.
</sarcasm>
universal healthcare is a form of investment in your society that pays dividends
if you don't pay for it overtly, you pay for the lack of universal healthcare in terms of easily preventable heart conditions complicating into more expensive conditions, breadwinners out of work because they can't treat their diabetes leading to their children to become street criminals, mumps and whooping cough outbreaks because vaccination is too complicated for the poor, people out sick more often because of inadequate healthcare, personal bankruptcies leading to losses at financial institutions due to sudden and expensive healthcare, etc.
in other words, you pay for healthcare, one way or another, no matter what your policy is
its just that universal healthcare is the CHEAPEST way to pay for it. but since the cost is overt and in your face, you reject it. but this simply means you don't understand the roundabout MORE EXPENSIVE and hidden ways you pay for it if you DON'T have universal healthcare
in other words, libertarian and tea bagger rejection of universal healthcare is based on a lack of ability to understand that life is complicated. what happens if you DON'T pay for healthcare as a society? people who get sick just disappear off the face of the earth? they are all paragons of personal financial virtue and never need aid? you yourself never need a helping hand? think about reality, then form an opinion
there are PLENTY of areas of life that should NEVER be public, and should always be private, for a number of reasons. capitalism, in fact, is the most useful engine for the creation of wealth ever invented by man. the point is, for SOME sectors of life, not all, making some thing run by the government actually is the CHEAPEST AND MOST EFFICIENT way for that sector to function
in other words, simplistic, fundamentalist adherence to the idea of free markets does NOT answer all questions in life, JUST AS TRUE as a simplistic, fundamentalist adherence to communist ideas does not work. but socialism, as understood by the rest of the first world, is simple the concept that SOME, not ALL, sectors of life require the government to run it for MAXIMUM FINANCIAL EFFICIENCY
a society with a capitalist engine, with socialist safety nets grafted on, is SUPERIOR and MORE EFFICIENT than a purely capitalist society. this really is the objective financially solid truth, not an opinion. lose your utopianism please: in life, simplistic absolutist philosophies, such as a fanatic devotion to individual reliance, DOES NOT WORK IN ALL FORMS. you are part of a society. as such, you contribute financially to it so that SOME functions in your life. by doing that some functions in your life are simply handled MORE CHEAPLY than if you handled them yourself. life is complicated, and requires a moderation between competing needs. understand this about the world, and drop your extremist ideologies
there is such a concept as the common good. there is such a concept as personal reliance. both are paragons of virtue that, in the real world, exist in tension in how they work. the idea is to find a BALANCE between the two ideals, not to simplemindedly adhere to one or the other polar extreme
teabaggers and libertarians: in SOME avenues of life, not all, the government is good, and works for you. you reject it at the price of your own impoverishment. that's the simple obvious truth
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In 1999, administration cost $1,059 per capita in the US, versus $307 per capita in Canada, per New England Journal of Medicine. So much for private businesses being better than the government. I've lived in Cyprus, UK, Canada, USA, Australia and China, and my experience, the UK has the most encompassing system, and Canada (Ontario at least) the most proactive and efficient. I totally hated the American system, and I can't say I'm much of a fan of what I saw in Melbourne. China was great as an expat because it was so bloody affordable, but that's not what we're discussing here.
Don't worry, IT will get regulated. Our industry has far too much power that, quite frankly, scares the shit out politicians. They can't leave well enough alone. Never have, never will.
Life is not for the lazy.
Not entirely true. The legislative actions (ending recissions, forcing insurance companies to cover everyone, etc) take effect immediately. Only the benefits that cost money have been delayed. There will be a big, positive effect right away.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking care of fellow humans, with loving and cherising their lives as much as your own, and with giving them your money so they can live longer and healthier lives. Except that this bill is not about that. It's about forcing you to do these things at gunpoint (and yes, a gunpoint is somewhere in your future if you stop paying your taxes) by raising taxes (by 3.8%) and by forcing you to buy health insurance when you don't want to do so. This is the core problem of socialism: it's not that we should hate helping our fellow man, it's that we should hate being forced to do so. It's that we should hate not being able to choose whom to help with our efforts, and so to not be able to value the lives of the people we love more than the people we don't.
I live in a country that has government-run universal insurance, and I deal *directly* with my doctor, too. I'm not sure why you believe this isn't possible.
Brain-washing and indoctrination.
The funny thing is, your tongue-in-cheek post spoofing the right-wing mentality in the US actually answers the question quite factually right there.
I'm American. I've lived most of my life in the United States, but have lived numerous times, for a number of years, outside of the United States (Germany, France, Japan, Hong Kong, and currently the United Kingdom) and had occasion to use the healthcare system myself, or have one in my family use it, in nearly all those locations (to be pedantic: I did not need to use the healthcare system in Japan).
The US system is by far the worst system I have used, in terms of delivery of service, cost, and effeciency. The healthcare (when provided) was adequate most of the time, but subpar more often than you might imagine (my wife got a staff infection from a routine vaccination that nearly killed her...mainly because the hospitical couldn't figure out how to diagnose such an obvious problem for an indordinate amount of time. And don't get me started on the weeks-long waiting lists for critical tests like angiograms, and the lab test results that show up months late, the lack of follow-through by doctores, and the billing mistakes that are perpetual to the point of absurdity, and always favor the hospital).
In contrast, we've had no trouble whatsoever with the medical system in Germany, France, or Hong Kong (though this was back when Hong Kong was a part of the British Empire, so YMMV these days), and with the NHS in England, only the occasional hassle of having to follow up on getting test results (but at least when you do follow up, they show up within a couple of weeks, unlike Northwestern, where they routinely go AWOL for 6 months or longer).
But try telling that to any of my fellow Americans. They simply will refuse to believe it (and most likely label you a liar for daring to reveal such uncomfortable truths that challenge their world-view of us having the best system in the world). Why? Years of rhetoric and brainwashing, founded on absolutely no facts.
Want another datapoint? Guess where the richest (non-American) people in the world tend to travel to for their private medical treatment. And I'm talking about Richer-Than-God, I can fly in my gold-plated jet anywhere in the world I like (including the US) and spend more than the GDP of a small country on my medical care people.
It isn't the US. Not most of the time, anyway.
The US is a distant fourth, behind France, the UK, and Germany? Why? Because a lot of the leading-edge research Americans (like one who has posted here) think only happens in the US, and excuse our rediculously lousy price/performance ratio on, actually take place and is funded by those countries that are paying 25-50% of what we pay for our substandard medical care.
But then, we're the best in the world. We don't need to learn anything from anyone else, do we? (cue patriotic music and refrains of "God Bless America" here)
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The whole insurance industry for healthcare is based on a flawed premise that normal care need insurance.
Here's the car analogy... if our cars were done like healthcare:
1. Gas would cost 10$/gal at the pump for cash/credit.
2. You would pay 25$ for every time you fueled up and your car insurance company would actually pay them 3.75$/gal for the gas
3. You would pay 150$/month for this "wonderfully cheaper gas"
4. Ohh... and if you need roadside assistance you have to pay for the first 5 fully before the insurance company starts picking up the tab.
So let's go back to why health insurance is flawed. Normal healthy individuals may make 3 (annual plus 2 cold/flu) trips to the doctor in a year. I pay 218$ per month for insurance through my employer (not counting the portion they pay). This means that I am effectively paying 872$ per trip to my doctor... ok... lets let that sink in... even if you count a nurse, doctor and receptionist out front splitting it and them only seeing 3 patients per hour (rough cases might take that long) we are still talking they would be making 1.74 MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR EACH! Now if you have any friends that are medical professionals I bet you know that there are VERY few that are making that much per year... especially receptionists :)
Now the argument is that "well this money helps balance out all the catastrophic claims"... fine then why are we using insurance for non-catastrophic claims? I have home owners insurance in case a tornado takes my house out but I don't run my water-softener salt or home improvement projects through the insurance company.
Why when it comes to health insurance do we loose the common sense that the more people that touch the money the more we have to pay for the same service.
Leave insurance for catastrophic claims and lets get rid of the day-to-day shenanigans. This should quell a lot of the issues in the industry and make it so that people could pay for what they need instead of padding peoples pockets for day-to-day necessities.
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
Actually, there are provisions in place to keep them from just charging whatever they want: they have to pay out at least 85% of revenues on actual medical care. Given that insurance companies have their own staff that they have to pay, this puts pretty strict limits on how much they can actually profit.
In fact, per the bill, insurers have to pay out 85% of their revenues in actual medical care, which means it's more or less impossible for them to just charge whatever they want. Yes, a public option would be better, and single-payer would be better still... but this bill is still a huge improvement on the status quo.
The case of Texas is instructive - they strictly limited damage payouts for medical malpractice cases... and their medical malpractice insurance premiums continued to escalate at exactly the same rate as the rest of the country. Nor was there any particular change in overall health-care cost escalation. So I think we can safely ignore this particular line of argument.
Wow. You complain about skewed information from Fox News, then post links to a satire site and ... Media Matters!
Hey, pot, kettle says you're black!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
That's the problem, and it is a real problem. However this bill is not the answer. The answer is regulation at the state level.
The US health insurance industry is currently regulated by individual states. Different states have different rules. However, one element to the current system is that the state government (which is more responsive to the needs of citizens usually than the federal government) tends to have offices for dealing with these sorts of complaints. Additionally, the same offices take complaints from doctors about lack of authorization for procedures. While this means that some states have better health insurance requirements than others, it means there is a clear point of contact when a problem exists that needs to be resolved quickly.
The problem with this bill is it entirely supplants the state health insurance regulation structures and replaces them with a shiny new federal system. There is no way that the main protections that the states offer against insurance abuses will work right away in the federal system. By pre-empting a fairly mature system of state regulation, this bill will not save lives but rather cost them.
The secondary problem is that the bill has inadequate cost control provisions. In Massachussets, after they passed a similar bill, health insurance rates went up. We can expect the same here. Quite frankly, I have no idea how I will afford it when the rates go up. Right now, when insurance companies raise their rates, I can drop off until they lower them again. This bill makes me part of a captive market.
The real underlying problem left unresolved is that we have inadequate consumer protections in the areas of health care and health insurance. While this bill purports to improve these conditions, it fixes, IMO, the wrong problems and leaves major issues unresolved. Why is it that I have more consumer protections when getting my car repaired than in obtaining non-emergency medical care?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The constitution says people cannot be coerced into signing a contract.
So then all laws requiring motor vehicle insurance are unconstitutional? That would be interesting.
The kings of inefficiency.
We spend 17% of our GDP on health care right now. Other nations get the same or better overall results spending less than half of this. Yes you might have to wait for some services but there is clearly huge inefficiencies in the current system, so much so that it is easy to argue that even a government run program would be better.
Tell it to the people in the UK or Canada who are waiting 6 months for a CT scan, where here in the U.S. it's unusual to wait for more than a few days.
There is quite a bit of evidence that the US has a huge and expensive overcapacity in exotic medical devices brought about by our current insurance system. We also clearly pay far more for the same drugs than people in other countries.
We supposedly pay 17% now, and we live longer lives
People in Canada, France, Germany, UK, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, Switzerland and Italy all have longer life expectancies than Americans and pay far less than 17% of their GDP for that life span.
Your article is full of factual errors. Try doing some research next time.
Which sort of implies that we, like the Romans and the British, are diverting just a wee bit too much of our resources on military activity, eh?
You can't have everything.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Similarly, the overall level of health might be improved if the feds stopped subsidizing meat, dairy, and corn (as in high fructose corn syrup). But not only is that not something being done outside of a healthcare reform bill, that's not even in this bill. You would think if the problem is how much it costs to make fat people not die, the first step would be to stop spending money that helps make them so fat in the first place.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Mass here. Self-employed, using the state mandated marketplace. - Costs were up 38% last year, year over year (not to mention the obvious, but on top of already having the highest cost in the nation...)