Slashdot Mirror
Tech In the Hot Seat For Oct. 1st Obamacare Launch
bednarz writes "In four days, the health insurance marketplaces mandated by the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act are scheduled to open for business. Yet even before the sites launch, problems are emerging. Final security testing of the federal data hub isn't slated to happen until Sept. 30, one day before the rollout. Lawmakers have raised significant concerns about the ability of the system to protect personal health records and other private information. 'Lots and lots of late nights and weekends as people get ready for go-live,' says Patrick Howard, who leads Deloitte Consulting's public sector state health care practice."
The Republicans can only get rid of it if it is unsuccessful, which is why they tried so hard to get rid of it before it was enacted. Even so, repealing it would take a Republican president and simple majority in both the house and senate, which is much harder.
Luckily for the Republicans they will always be able to find some metrics that show that it was a failure. Health care premiums will continue to rise no matter what until we serious talk about rationing care, so any health care plan written by either party will always leave room for complaints.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
. . . the same wonks that gave us so many failed DMV systems haven't found work in this sector too.
You're joking right? It's the exact same people.
SAIC is already in on the action.
That's the company that scammed New York out of all that money.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
So said, funding = telling provinces how to do it. Gotcha, can you tell me when the last time the federal government dictated where to build a hospital in Ontario, Alberta, or even Quebec? Right. How about the number of doctors that need to be hired in each specific province. Right. And let me know when you get around to reading the federal healthcare act again, which should take you all of about 8 minutes. I'll see you sometime next year when you're done reading the ACA.
Om, nomnomnom...
you obviously don't know what you're talking about. $92 a year? Bullshit. For me it will cost an addition $8,000 dollars for health insurance, PLUS the cost of my diabetic wife's insulin, needle, test strips, etc have all doubled in price. For a grand total of almost $14,000 a year. I don't know where you got your $92 quote but it's WAAAAAAAY off. btw, I make less than 100k a year.
As for the second part, people in this country don't get turned away because they're poor, they get medicare or medicaid (depending on age).
Actually they're quite wide. Go and read the healthcare act then look at the provinces. In fact those "warning shots" have been at Quebec most of the time, because they simply dump the money direct into general revenue, then take it back out. In order to claim that the money came directly from their own general fund. Aka useless BS Quebec type stuff.
And to highlight difference, in Ontario I pay nothing. I don't pay for any tests or diagnostics out of pocket. I pay for notes from my doctor, and that's it. And if I end up in another province, I still won't be billed--because OHIP will cover it.
Om, nomnomnom...
Before clicking on any health care related article in Forbes, you need to ask yourself "am I about to read something written by Avik Roy?" If so, just stop. He spews crap. Now, I have not actually clicked on your link yet, but I am about to. And we will see if my powers of prediction are at all accurate.
I'll take freedom from mortgage and foreclosure fraud.
And freedom from contaminated food.
Freedom from a few other things too.
If you like the American system so damned much, I urge you to move there.
For some reason when this topic comes up, we never seem to hear much about stories like this:
Report: Thousands fled Canada for health care in 2011
A Canadian study released Wednesday found that many provinces in our neighbor to the north have seen patients fleeing the country and opting for medical treatment in the United States.
The nonpartisan Fraser Institute reported that 46,159 Canadians sought medical treatment outside of Canada in 2011, as wait times increased 104 percent — more than double — compared with statistics from 1993.
Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 provinces reported an average total wait time of 19 weeks between the time a general practitioner refers a patient and the time a specialist provides elective treatment — the longest they have ever recorded.
"You have to pass the bill to know what's in it." - Nancy Pelosi
And this representative from California was re-elected. Huh. Well as Ron White says "You can't fix stupid."
If you wanted to fix the US Healthcare system by making care affordable for all and allowing people with pre-existing conditions to get insured, then it wouldn't take 2700 pages of other crap that's in the legislative package. What we didn't get was:
1) No direct influence over rising expenditures for Medical Care. You have a system which doesn't abide by market forces and hospital administrators get paid millions of dollars in salaries and benefits. When you're seriously ill, you don't usually have the time to shop around so whatever they charge you (or your insurance) is what's charged. Sure, there's negotiations and maximums that insurance companies negotiate but that drives further business through insurance companies, forcing you to deal with them.
2) There was no discussion on tort reform so thousands of ambulance chasers can still sue the doctors and hospitals when your scars comes out a little bit strange. A big component to care is the necessary malpractice insurance which can cost upwards of $200,000 in some high cost states. Add that to office staff, paying the Nurse, the building costs and the medical coder to bill the insurance companies correctly and you can see easily why it costs a lot to see a doctor over a routine sniffle.
3) The Drug companies were let largely intact. There are a few costs they'll have to put up with but they're still expected to rake in Billions in profits under the ACA. Ask yourself why that pill you're taking is $5 and why, if it was allowed, you could get it for $.25. Sure the drug industry will claim that "these are inferior" but really it's a smokescreen.
4) The Single Payer system died. Nobody wanted to go against the big Insurance Firms and their lobbyists so we love big business in this country, so why not throw a few billion dollars their way. Well, they do now have to spend more on direct costs for Insurance which is good but allowing interstate competition and other market driven forces into the process would have been much better. That's what the exchanges are supposed to do but here we have the US Government trying to create markets rather than creating incentives with appropriate regulatory oversight for markets to flourish. Oh wait, considering the Financial Collapse, the Regulatory Process failed, so DC can't be trusted with that.
To be honest, you could have taken this 2700 pages, cut out the BS, the Pork like the "Exchanges" which Deloitte is now merrily feeding upon it seems and done away with it and had legislation that was no more than 10 pages long. Starting next year you'll hear more pigs in DC all lining up because the Feds have just blessed one industry with unlimited monopoly powers and you have to pay what they want to charge you. You have no choice, so invest in big Pharma, Hostpital chains and big medical concerns because they'll be raking it in even more.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"