No reason not to do it.
According to a pair of Capitol Hill sources, preliminary estimates from the Congressional Budget Office suggest that a strong public option–the kind that the House of Representatives is putting in its reform bill–should net somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 billion in savings over ten years.
The sources cautioned that these were only the preliminary estimates, based on previous discussions–that CBO had not yet issued final scoring on language in the actual bill. But the sources felt the final estimate would likely be close.
Of course!
If you stop paying for medical procedures, scanners and modern drugs, it definitely gets cheaper to provide medical care.
If you catch a cancer early through preventative care it doesn’t cost a fortune later down the road (and will keep a person alive as well).
Double bonus: Cost effective AND life saving.
Ok dumbass news reference…how exactly do you catch cancer early enough through preventative care?
Other than pap schmears and PSA’s, there is technology involved. And you have to have a high index of suspicion. And you have to screen lots and lots of people.
Once oliver clears my other comments in previous threads, you can explain to me why europeans have a 20% lower 5 year survival rate for solid cancers if this whole socialized medicine is so great…..
Stick to what you know…Oh, and clue us in on what you know. So far you have been a font of absolute idiocy.
From the rest of the article…
This is a potential$150,000,000,000.00 savings in a plan costing upwards of $1,000,000,000,000.00. I wonder why Mr. Willis chose to leave that glaring bit of context out of his insightful commentary of “No reason not to do it.” The article he links gives one trillion reasons why not.
The “usual ‘Republican’ suspect” apparently got his faux-medical degree from the same Fool-School that Monica Goodling got her law degree.
(and don’t take the filters personal, some of my best posts were filtered out and never showed up {shrug};-]
The Jon Cohn post OW links is long on telling health care reformers what they want to hear and very, very short on answers.
Well, apparently it’s not enough of a “key question” for Cohn to bother trying to answer it. Will a public option “net” $150 billion in savings? That would be awesome. But Cohn seems to contradict himself in his last paragraph:
Now is the public option going to cost $1 trillion to produce $150 billion in savings? In my book that’s not “netting” $150 billion in savings. That’s a net of $850 billion in new cost.
If we’re looking for good information about the health care debate, it’s not going to come from posts like the one Cohn offered.
This is over a year old: “The cost of a Pap smear varies among doctor’s offices. The cost can range from $50 through $200. Some offices have a discounted price for uninsured women, while others have a standard rate.”
http://cervicalcancer.about.com/od/screening/f/pap_cost.htm
But the corporate-bureaucrats you are protecting the profit of would probably prefer not to shell out for that early test and just what while their premiums pile up and then it’s declared an emergency.
Then your corporate-bureaucrat friends in the corporate-medical-insurance industry can just rescind (take away) the woman’s health insurance, keep all the premiums they had overcharged her for, and walk away with a billion dollars in loot.
Again with the griping that I should post the entire article/blog entry here. It’s called a link, its vital to the internet, try and use them sometimes.
AMERICA’S NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY!
It’s official. America and the World are now in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. A World EPIDEMIC with potential catastrophic consequences for ALL of the American people. The first PANDEMIC in 41 years. And WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES will have to face this PANDEMIC with the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed World.
STAND READY AMERICA TO SEIZE CONTROL OF YOUR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
We spend over twice as much of our GDP on healthcare as any other country in the World. And Individual American spend about ten times as much out of pocket on healthcare as any other people in the World. All because of GREED! And the PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare system in America.
And while all this is going on, some members of congress seem mostly concern about how to protect the corporate PROFITS! of our GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT NATIONAL DISGRACE. A PRIVATE FOR PROFIT DISGRACE that is in fact, totally valueless to the public health. And a detriment to national security, public safety, and the public health.
Progressive democrats the Tri-Caucus and others should stand firm in their demand for a robust government-run public option for all Americans, with all of the minimum requirements progressive democrats demanded. If congress can not pass a robust public option with at least 51 votes and all robust minimum requirements, congress should immediately move to scrap healthcare reform and request that President Obama declare a state of NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY! Seizing and replacing all PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance plans with the immediate implementation of National Healthcare for all Americans under the provisions of HR676 (A Single-payer National Healthcare Plan For All).
Coverage can begin immediately through our current medicare system. With immediate expansion through recruitment of displaced workers from the canceled private sector insurance industry. Funding can also begin immediately by substitution of payroll deductions for private insurance plans with payroll deductions for the national healthcare plan. This is what the vast majority of the American people want. And this is what all objective experts unanimously agree would be the best, and most cost effective for the American people and our economy.
In Mexico on average people who received medical care for A-H1N1 (Swine Flu) with in 3 days survived. People who did not receive medical care until 7 days or more died. This has been the same results in the US. But 50 million Americans don’t even have any healthcare coverage. And at least 200 million of you with insurance could not get in to see your private insurance plans doctors in 2 or 3 days, even if your life depended on it. WHICH IT DOES!
If President Obama has to declare a NATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY to rescue the American people from our healthcare crisis, he will need all the sustained support you can give him. STICK WITH HIM! He’s doing a brilliant job.
THIS IS THE BIG ONE!
THE BATTLE OF GOOD Vs EVIL!
Join the fight.
Contact congress and your representatives NOW! AND SPREAD THE WORD!
God Bless You
Jacksmith – WORKING CLASS
“SFC B” leaves out that the calculation is over 10 years.
Hmmm, I wonder why he would leave that out?
Oh, that’s right, because the cost of health care sticker price would then only be 1/10th of what’s being touted.
And think about the two Parties priorities:
Republican President Bush managed to shake down the Congress for $700 billion over a weekend for his corporate-financial-industry cronies.
Republicans even managed to give their crony elite “base” TRILLIONS (plural) during a time of war.
But hey, health care for 1/6th to 1/4th of the American Citizenry that might cost as much as $100 billion a year….
Well, gee, Republicans don’t believe those lives are important…
Hopefully the Democratic Party does.
If that 15% savings can be squeezed out the number becomes $85 billion a year.
For perspective: We’ve spent EIGHT TIMES that in Iraq (you know, the country that was never the threat it was claimed to be).
Also, we lose SIX TIMES more Americans from lack of health insurance PER YEAR than were lost on 9/11.
“18,000 deaths blamed on lack of insurance [a year].” “More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can’t get proper health care, researchers report in a landmark study released Tuesday.”
So measuring that over 10 years the headline is:
180,000 AMERICANS WILL BE SAVED WITH A PUBLIC PLAN HEALTHCARE OPTION.
Bull. Shit. Newsy
Lack of insurance does not prevent people from getting medical care in and of itself.
Correlation does not prove causation.
And congratulations Quaker. I agree with you.
Remember that my argument against socialized medicine is not an argument against reform of the medical insurance in this country
“72 percent — support a government-sponsored health care plan to compete with private insurers”
This is a life or death issue for 180,000 Americans.
Why do Republicans hate 72% of the American people?
98% of americans support pink unicorns that fart rainbows and whos tears are gumdrops…..
Very easy to support an imaginary creature. Start asking what percent of americans support a two-tiered health care system, or rationing.
When we have an actual plan in place,you know with specifics,then what people really want will become clear.
“usual ‘Republican’ suspect”: “Lack of insurance does not prevent people from getting medical care in and of itself.”
Remember when Republican McCain’s Lobbyist explained McCain’s healthcare plan was: ‘go to the emergency room’?
Yeah, good times (for evil people).
Yes, fortunately we live in a society that expects hospitals to accept emergency trauma cases (those dying of slow deaths that can’t pay get locked out, though).
But that’s part of the costs and also where some of the savings gains can be made.
Emergency rooms may give you care at the last minute when you can’t afford anything else, but that’s insanely more expensive than a regular Doctor visit for regular care.
Those unpaid emergency room costs get passed on to the other customers of health care (which means higher insurance rates for you and I).
Creating an umbrella public option for those people would significantly reduce those emergency room visits at the last minute when everything seems desperate.
And that in turn lowers total healthcare costs.
The reality is that the corporate-medical-monopolies overcharge people and then pull the rug out from underneath those paying customers when they need care.
THAT’S “RATIONING” FROM CORPORATE-BUREAUCRATS BUCKING FOR A BONUS.
No one is griping that you should post the entire article. We’re pointing out that you seem to have cherry-picked the only part of the article which supports your claim and ignored the bit, two grafs later, which put the “savings” in context. I’m pretty sure you’ve done the exact same thing to other bloggers you disagree with. I seem to recall something like that involving some spat with Glenn Reynolds. But maybe my memory is failing me.
Well, one, I “left” it out since it was brought up in the original post. I made the mistake of assuming people would realize I was talking about spending over the same period that the savings will supposedly come. Two, if the $1,000,000,000,000.00 is spread over 10 years, so are the savings. Three, as Quaker points out, it’s not even clear if the savings are $150,000,000,000.00 over ten years out of the $1,000,000,000,000.00, or if that is a savings which will reduce the cost to only $1,000,000,000,000.00?
Most of those 72% are under the illusion that a government-sponsored health care plan will “compete” with private insurers. From the article in question:
There will be no competition with a government plan. As soon as that government option hits the market it will be manipulated, always for the greater good mind you, so as to provide crappy coverage to as many people as possible. It will bleed red ink like the walls of the Overlook Hotel, but it will never go out of business because it will be too important to everyone’s well-being to go out of business.
Newsy read your own article…
“Sassi said rescissions are necessary to prevent people who lie about preexisting conditions from obtaining coverage and driving up costs for others.
“I want to emphasize that rescission is about stopping fraud and material misrepresentations that contribute to spiraling healthcare costs,” Sassi told the committee.”
So leaving out little items like night sweats, weight loss, nausea from your insurance application and then, voila! Once covered, turns out you have leukemia!
There are plenty of changes to be made to the health insurance industry in this country, just handing over the reins to the government ain’t one of the good ones.
If you catch a cancer early through preventative care it doesn’t cost a fortune later down the road (and will keep a person alive as well).
that’s a big if. And in the process, we’re gonna clog the system and turn the doctors office into the DMV. The one or two cases you catch early aren’t going to save you what you’re spending on the thousands, yea millions, getting unnecessarily screened.
“Congressional investigators found that three big insurers canceled about 20,000 individual policies over a five-year period — allowing them to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims.”
Think you have health insurance because you faithfully paid your premiums?
If you become an expense you may discover that a faceless corporate-bureaucrat “rations” your health coverage bucking for a bonus.
If you stop paying for medical procedures, scanners and modern drugs, it definitely gets cheaper to provide medical care.
I think you mean that if you spend some time to figure out which treatments are really necessary and effective and stop paying for the ones that aren’t, and if you stop paying for phamaceutical companies to market their snot and boner drugs, then medical care definitely gets cheaper.
why europeans have a 20% lower 5 year survival rate for solid cancers if this whole socialized medicine is so great…..
I dunno, maybe because they smoke more and jog less? Do you have any evidence that positively links this rate to the introduction of public health care? Didn’t you say elsewhere in this thread Correlation does not prove causation?
Remember the bad old days when corporate-bureaucrats decided whether or not you could receive life-saving medical care…
Oh, wait, that’s NOW.
same cancers wilbur, once they find them and treat them, the europeans have a 20% lesser rate of survival.
Look up EMTALA newsy
“SFC B” discusses what will happen to a public-plan health option when/if Republicans get in charge of our government again “As soon as that government option hits the market it will be manipulated, always for the greater good mind you, so as to provide crappy coverage to as many people as possible.”
Republicans and right wingers ({cough} blue dogs) have already been trying to sabotage the competition of a public-plan.
The fear Republican leaders have of competition is because it would break up the corporate-medical-monopolies that Republicans service.
The US has a worse life expectancy rate than 49 other countries.
CORPORATE-BUREAUCRATS RATION HEALTH CARE:
“An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.
It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.”
‘Remember that my argument against socialized medicine is not an argument against reform of the medical insurance in this country’
No, you just continue to use the bullshit tag ’socialism’ which is Conservatives’ code word of the day for ‘progressive,’ or ‘logical.’
But hey, why wouldn’t you be against ’socialized medicine’ which would only prevent for profit greed merchants from gouging people who are sick?
Where would their obscene profits be found then?
Read that again: Corporate-insurance “policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.””
THAT’S RESCISSION: CORPORATE-RATIONING OF HEALTH CARE.
THAT’S CRIMINAL, FRAUDULENT LOOTING.
‘There will be no competition with a government plan. As soon as that government option hits the market it will be manipulated, always for the greater good mind you, so as to provide crappy coverage to as many people as possible’
As opposed to the awesome coverage and healthy competition you have now?
When you realize, as many advanced nations have, that health care is a RIGHT, and not a PRIVILEGE, perhaps you’ll understand why the same countries which offer ’socialized medicine,’ are doing so because they realize a healthy population is more productive, more contented, and less likely to drain billions of dollars from government budgets; and these aren’t even the nations who have the HIGHEST OBESITY, HEART DISEASE,STROKE AND CANCER RATES IN THE WORLD.
What is your objection to a system that actually takes an interest in the health of its citizens, and WORKS?
Considering that the corporate-medical-industry owns the Republican Party and has made down payments on the Blue Dogs, the system we have now can arguably be called the corporate-fascism-medical-industry.
Republican’s support of the corporate-fascism-medical-industry kills 180,000 Americans.
(That’s my reply to right wingers like the “usual ‘Republican’ suspect” who think it’s sly to slip in the S* slur.)
Newsy IS a bot. He just repeats the same tired argument, even after having been rebutted in previous threads….
Funkystein, you don’t want to call state control of means of production, be it medicine or car manufacturing, socialism, fine with me. What name WOULD you like to call it? The outcome will be the same, crappy. But don’t believe me, look at every other socialist experiment in the history of mankind….
As far as your other arguments about how well it works: Why do the europeans have a 20% lower five year survival rate for solid cancers? Why are the vast majority of pharmaceutical and health technologies developed in the States?. Are you going to force americans to have to walk places like most of europe (cause they can’t afford cars…or gas), thereby gaining the health benefits of that lifestyle?
Funkystein find me one socialized medicine system in the world that isn’t short of cash, that didn’t overrun budget estimates by an order of magnitude, and that doesn’t require diminishing the quality of care to provide a lesser quality of care to all. You want to provide other people “rights” at my expense. Sorry buddy, that is just theft by another name. As I pointed out earlier, none of the lefties here are in the 250K + bracket, so talk is cheap. You will sit back and collect your free health-care, while the most productive members of this society pay for it.
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
usualsuspect: Lack of insurance does not prevent people from getting medical care in and of itself.
Yeah, it just causes people to wait until they can no longer ignore their condition, and go to the emergency room and clog up that vital system. And since they probably couldn’t afford health insurance they probably can’t afford what the ER charges them either, so they don’t pay. The hospital has to charge someone, so they wind up passing the cost on to the insurers, who naturally pass the cost on to their customers.
This increase in premiums of course makes it so that more policyholders and employers can’t afford insurance, and so the cycle repeats itself.
I have to ask… does anyone one the side of the private insurance industry have any constructive ideas on how to get the cost of health insurance to start going down or at least level out? Because all I’m hearing from the right is a bunch of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the Democratic plan, not so much in the way of ideas to address the problem.
A problem which, by the way, was evident back when Republicans were in power.
Republican’s Crooked Corporate Crony:
Corporate-medical-industry CeoROOK loots $1.42 BILLION, gets caught, only keeps $800 MILLION.
Corporate-medical-industry crook loots over a BILLION dollars and after getting caught keeps $.8 BILLION dollars.
That’s Republicanism in a nutshell.
[bot botched the link, now fixed:]
Corporate-medical-industry CeoROOK loots $1.42 BILLION, gets caught, only keeps $800 MILLION.
a plan costing upwards of $1,000,000,000,000
Or about half of Bush fils tax cuts for the very wealthy, and a quarter of the Iraq Invasion. Perspective: it ought to be what’s for dinner.
This was eye-opening:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html
The discussion, “Profits Before Patients”, with Cigna Insurance Company’s former Vice President of Communications, Wendell Potter talking about the corporate-medical-insurance industry, can be watched online.
It was alternately shocking, insightful, and maddening.
Absolutely essential watching if you are trying to be informed about what’s going on with the corporate-medical-industry and it’s opposition to Citizen health care.
(h/t Indeed!-)
Spread the word. I liked the part where the former Cigna exec pointed out that, ultimately, these are people who are being affected by our current health care system.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html
the usual guy said “Remember that my argument against socialized medicine is not an argument against reform of the medical insurance in this country”
Did you always believe this? How long have you wanted “reform” of the medical insurance industry? Seems like alot of wingers suddenly care about the uninsured and the “reform” of the medical insurance industry. Shocked.
Indeed and News Reference, that was a great video.
One of the things I found interesting was the “Medical Loss Ratio.” This is the ratio of its revenue a health insurance company spends on medical claims. Investors in these companies like to see this ratio going down, because it means greater profitability. The average ratio was 90% in the ’90s, but has fallen to 80%. The insurance companies are achieving these lower ratios by denying valid claims, increasing deductibles, and jacking up premiums for small companies that have an employee who suddenly has lots of pricey claims — often forcing the small employer to go elsewhere or do without.
This is all backwards to me. If this was a healthy market, shouldn’t we see these companies trying to become more profitable by increasing the number of policyholders? Instead, it seems like their customers are no longer those who buy insurance, but their Wall Street investors.
We’ve already trod this ground NR. 13 of those aren’t even countries. Two of the countries are smaller than most US cities. And the only organization even listed on there which is close to a match for the US in size and having a heterogeneous population is the EU. Which has a life expectancy six months longer than the US. I just don’t find spending $1,000,000,000,000.00 we don’t have to try and close a six month gap all that compelling a reason.
So because a president you don’t like spent a crap ton of money on “bad” plans, it is okay for a president you do like to spend a crap ton of money on “bad” plans. Got it. Perspective sure tastes good.
It is no where near a healthy market. Which is why I want to pull out what is left of my hair when NR’s bot goes on and on about how the health care system in this country is broke because the market doesn’t work. When insurance companies are able to sell their product based on the wants and needs of the customer, when businesses can accept clients across state lines, and the health provider side isn’t restricted through licensing programs designed to protect current providers you might be able to tell whether the market will be able to meet health care needs. As is, anyone saying that the health care system in the US is a failure because market principles can’t deliver health care is either ignorant or is hoping to profit off of selling medical services on the black market after the government ruins what we have.
Why do we even need insurance companies? Just let Americans deal directly with their doctors and cut out the middle-men.
Make it cheaper and more efficient. Let doctors do their jobs and make people healthy, and stop lining the pockets of non-doctors who aren’t necessary.
“We’ve already trod this ground NR. 13 of those aren’t even countries. Two of the countries are smaller than most US cities. And the only organization even listed on there which is close to a match for the US in size and having a heterogeneous population is the EU. Which has a life expectancy six months longer than the US. I just don’t find spending $1,000,000,000,000.00 we don’t have to try and close a six month gap all that compelling a reason.”
SFC is being dishonest, contradicting himself (herself?) within the same paragraph. At first he argues that the metric is bogus because 13 of the listings aren’t even countries, then he argues that the US should be compared to the whole of the EU (which includes recently admitted Eastern European countries with a low standard of living) which, last I checked, isn’t a country. He ignores the Western and Northern European countries, who cover all of their citizens and have very strong outcomes for a fraction of the cost of America’s for-profit system.
‘Funkystein find me one socialized medicine system in the world that isn’t short of cash, that didn’t overrun budget estimates by an order of magnitude, and that doesn’t require diminishing the quality of care to provide a lesser quality of care to all.’
The one I’m part of; the Canadian health care system.
‘Funkystein, you don’t want to call state control of means of production, be it medicine or car manufacturing, socialism, fine with me. What name WOULD you like to call it?’
Federal administration of health care is what I would call it; what would you call the state control of personal income revenue regulated by a federal government?
‘As far as your other arguments about how well it works: Why do the europeans have a 20% lower five year survival rate for solid cancers? Why are the vast majority of pharmaceutical and health technologies developed in the States?. Are you going to force americans to have to walk places like most of europe (cause they can’t afford cars…or gas), thereby gaining the health benefits of that lifestyle?’
What the HELL are you talking about? Who is forcing Europeans to walk to health clinics?
“We will be raptured before we get cancer. Our employer will never cut our benefits”-cons
‘You will sit back and collect your free health-care, while the most productive members of this society pay for it.’
You’re right; I don’t make anywhere near $250,000 a year. Now explain to me how my taxes that support our health care system is forcing those in higher tax brackets to cover the cost of my health care services.
EVERYONE in Canada that pays taxes, are paying to support a host of public services, including health care; if and/or when you need to utilize those services, you have paid into them, and are thus ENTITLED to make use of them.
HOW IS THAT FORCING ANYONE TO PAY FOR MY UTILIZATION OF SERVICES THAT I HAVE BEEN PAYING INTO FOR DECADES?
Your ‘arguments,’ like your asinine assertion that my Father ‘hooked me up’ in a public hospital in my neighborhood who had no idea who he was, are simply ludicrous.
So because a president you don’t like spent a crap ton of money on “bad” plans, it is okay for a president you do like to spend a crap ton of money on “bad” plans.
No, but it is okay for a president, whom I do not dislike as much as the previous joke, to spend a bunch of money on a half-decent plan which is a vast improvement on the current plan and which may be the only path to an even better future plan. Got it?
Did you watch the video yet? No? Well hop to it.
same cancers wilbur, once they find them and treat them, the europeans have a 20% lesser rate of survival.
You have yet to provide any evidence that there is some causal relationship between national health care and this rate. Does this rate include Eastern Europe where the health care system is still recovering from the bad old days and from civil war? Does it include Greece where they smoke like chimneys and never exercise? General health factors (diet, environment, smoking, jogging) may effect how long one survives a major disease, no? It may also be the result of practices that could be provided under a government system but simply aren’t at this point.
But it’s interesting that you should pick out this one metric and keep harping on it. Study after study shows that on some metrics US comes out in top over Europe, and in others its the other way around. Overall, the two systems are comparable in health outcomes.
What I have still yet to hear any of our right-wing friends explain is how they can get comparable health outcomes by spending as little as half what we do on health care. One would think that they have some heavy investment in the current bloated, inefficient and non-equitable system.
I gave you a metric that is directly related to medical care: The treatment of a specific set of diseases with well known diagnostic criteria and treatments. Life span, infant mortality rates, those are figures that have so many variable as to be useless in measuring health care.
Maybe it’s because the VRWC recognizes that when the Federal government gets involved, the problem only gets worse.
The “usual ‘Republican’ suspect explains what will happen if the corporate-medical-industry crooks that loot the current medical-system get their corrupted politicians to hand them back the system without change: “The outcome will be the same, crappy.”
How crappy?
Deaths of 18,000 Americans a year will continue to be the result of a lack of health insurance under the Republican crony corporate-medical-industry.
American infants will die at a higher rate than 43 other countries under the Republican crony corporate-medical-industry. (Many of the countries that do a better job than US at keeping infants alive are {gasp!} socialist!)
Americans will continue to have a lower life expectancy rate than 49 other countries under the Republican crony corporate-medical-industry.
Thousands of Americans who paid corporate-medical-insurance companies will arbitrarily have their health care rescinded (taken away), RATIONED by Corporate-Bureaucrats protected by their paid off Republican Cronies.
Jaim I agree with you, with the caveat that there should be a “catastrophic” plan for surgery and major health issues. Take care of the poor with a county hospital/local clinic plan supplemented by fed funds as necessary.
Part of the problem today is that americans don’t understand our health system. There is no “passing costs” on. The government sets rates for health care via fixed payments for Medicare based on something called CPT codes. Those payments are a small percentage of most doctors fees. But most of us take them, as the elderly make up a large population of our patients…they are “loss leaders” as it were.
Now the insurance companies know that we all take this payment at 3-4x off our “normal” rates, so now the insurance companies can squeeze us. They negotiate rates, using medicare rates as some sort of baseline. In this way the government sets healthcare rates.
Now on the doctors side of things, we spend up to 12% of our income just collecting the fee we are due from the insurance company! The insurance company can literally come to me a year after I have performed surgery and say “sorry, we changed our mind we aren’t covering that, give us our money back”. In the meantime, the government system is constantly demanding more and more paperwork, and threatening us with additional audits in order to prevent the 3-5% fraud rates. All this takes time and money.
Believe me, a single payer government system would be an advantage to me. I just take care of patients. I would work regular hours, not bother to fit new patients in (why bother, I have a full schedule and a fixed income anyway). I wouldn’t take phone calls after hours (unless you paid me more for it). I know my family would always be cared for, cause I can call whatever specialist I want and get to the head of the line for an appointment.
The rest of america is not ready to tolerate the long waits and poor access to specialty care that will inevitably follow.
If the democrats are really anxious to change to this system, then they ought to be willing to tell people what they are really in for, then let the people decide.
Instead, it is this creeping socialism , “Oh this is just the government OPTION….we aren’t getting rid of private healthcare!” As long as there is private pay, doctors will try to maintain their current standards, so those on the “government” option will get better care as well. But once the populace sees that the “government option” is cheaper, they will head right over. Eventually, voila! Socialized medicine. Then doctors will get their union (currently illegal for doctors to form a union…did you lefties know that?) And of course in usual democrat fashion….we start all this off by class warfare and taxing the wealthy, allowing the vast majority of the country to vote themselves benefits paid for by the minority.
The “usual ‘Republican’ suspect” falsely asserts: “There is no “passing costs” on.”
“limulus” already addressed that falsehood while addressing one of the “usual ‘Republican’ suspect’s” other falsehood:
usualsuspect: Lack of insurance does not prevent people from getting medical care in and of itself.
["limulus":] Yeah, it just causes people to wait until they can no longer ignore their condition, and go to the emergency room and clog up that vital system. And since they probably couldn’t afford health insurance they probably can’t afford what the ER charges them either, so they don’t pay. The hospital has to charge someone, so they wind up passing the cost on to the insurers, who naturally pass the cost on to their customers.
This increase in premiums of course makes it so that more policyholders and employers can’t afford insurance, and so the cycle repeats itself.
You know newsy, you can actually write a check to doctor and get medical care?
About $50 bucks will get you a visit to a PMD or a doc in the box.You can get a whole physical with labs,xrays etc for less $300. Wouldn’t it be worth $300 to avoid bankruptcy by an unexpected illness? Hell, I will guarantee you that 95% of people that don’t have health insurance have a color tv and cable…..
The problem is, you dumbass lefties have convinced people that medical care is a “right”. Well what red-blooded american is willing to go out and pay hard cash for a “right”?
See, we “wingers” belief that a doctors service is actually worth something. We aren’t willing to mooch off of society, or demand that the doctor give us something for free. I am proud to pay a plumber or a piano mover for that matter, for his or her expertise, and consider it a point of pride.
The “usual ‘Republican’ suspect” claims* one of the reasons health care is so bloated is that medical professionals “spend up to 12% of our [?medical professionals] income just collecting the fee we are due from the insurance company!”
Which means that you are getting overcharged by at minimum 12% (and much more) so that the “usual ‘corrupt corporate-medical-industry’ suspect” can reclaim what they feel is rightfully owed them.
I can understand why a medical professional would be offended for performing services and then get jerked around by the insurance companies only to have the insurance company assert they won’t pay up.
But that avoids considering the patient that payed their corporate-medical-insurance industries premiums only to discover that their corporate-medical-insurance company was a weasel that would arbitrarily not pay when a claim was made.
This of course assumes that the patient received care. Increasingly profitable corporate-medical-insurers increasingly just completely refuse to provide the services they were paid for.
And that’s the system right wingers are protecting.
*The “usual ‘Republican’ suspect” is a dishonest, callous bigot so take any claims they make with a ton of salt.
‘The problem is, you dumbass lefties have convinced people that medical care is a “right”. Well what red-blooded american is willing to go out and pay hard cash for a “right”?’
No, the problem is that you righties are trying to convince Americans that health care is a ‘privilege.’ What cold blooded American would demand that other Americans go out and pay hard cash for the privilege of being healthy?
The “usual ‘Republican’ suspect” demands that “If the democrats are really anxious to change to this system, then they ought to be willing to tell people what they are really in for”.
OK. If a public plan is well implemented and carefully managed, based on the results of other countries Americans can expect longer lives, lower infant mortality rates, fewer* deaths due to lack of insurance, fewer* bankruptcies due to medical bills, no corporate-medical-monopolies arbitrary “rescissions”, and a competitive health care system.
And the real clincher?
Even the “usual ‘Republican’ suspect” concedes: “once the populace sees that the “government option” is cheaper, they will head right over.”
*fewer? possibly no deaths or bankruptcies due to lack of insurance (if a public plan is implemented correctly).
98% of americans support pink unicorns that fart rainbows and whos tears are gumdrops…..
I, for one, vehemently oppose them.
Same old bullshit arguments we’ve been over ad infinitum. We should just do nothing and continue to get raped by a for-profit health care system that has no incentive to put the needs of the patient first. Anything other than that is “Socialism”.
Fuck that. Stand up, sit down, or get the fuck out of the way.
If the democrats are really anxious to change to this system, then they ought to be willing to tell people what they are really in for, then let the people decide.
Problem with that is, you won’t listen. All you hear is “blah blah socialism blah blah birth certificate blahditty blah.”
I wouldn’t take phone calls after hours (unless you paid me more for it).
You saying you do that now? I call shenanigans. My doctor’s office turns off their phones for lunch every day.
OK. If a public plan is well implemented and carefully managed, based on the results of other countries
and if the Lions execute their game plans, they could go 16-0 this year!! That’s just as likely as a “well implemented public plan”.
My mom just fell in her kitchen and tore her MCL two days ago. Diagnosis alone, before any treatment, she’s already in four figures.
America is the awesomest!
Thankfully, she works for the county (and is thus under their decent insurance) she lives in. If she didn’t work for the government, living in a small town where almost no other employers offer insurance, she’d be well and truly fucked.
and if the Lions execute their game plans, they could go 16-0 this year!! That’s just as likely as a “well implemented public plan”.
So we shouldn’t even try, is that it, Farris? Not quite the “git ‘er done” attitude I would expect from Americans.
“We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hare.”
This is one of those other things he was talking about.
Oh, that’s right, he was a Democratic too, wasn’t he?
I’m so fed up with republic obstruction. You have no alternative, just forever bitching about how it won’t work.
SFC B:
I might be wrong, but are you saying here that a problem is that we have employers being the buyers of insurance instead of those who actually use it? I’d agree that can be a problem for a market, when the buyers are not also the users of a product. However, I don’t see a politically feasible way to prevent this.
Even if it was feasible, you’d wind up with a lot of healthy people “going naked.” Young and healthy folks are much less likely to buy health insurance if their employer doesn’t do it for them.
This would allow for insurers to only sell policies from a few states that have the most pro-insurer laws. This is not a way to fix the market, but rather a way for insurers to avoid competition.
I’m not sure what this refers to, but am curious.
“Parthenon”, sorry to hear about your Mom.
Glad she’s got health coverage
My first reaction after reading the end of your post wasn’t as polite:
Republicans are motherfu$$$$$ for obstructing a decent public health plan for the rest of Americans.
Right wingers like “SaveFarris” conflate Republicans with government and it’s true that that combination spells failure.
Republican failure at running government.
But Republican failure at running government doesn’t mean anything but that Republicans are failures at being in charge.
The solution? Don’t vote Republican failures into office.
The Republicobstruction Party can’t lead and needs to get out of the way.
We aren’t willing to mooch off of society, or demand that the doctor give us something for free.
Who is actually asking doctors, or anyone for that matter, to work for free?
And since paying doctors directly for their services is such a point of pride for you, we can assume that you don’t have insurance and are currently paying the full cost of your health care out of pocket, correct?
They’re likely to go without the sort of expensive, covers “everything” (I know it doesn’t cover everything but it is far more comprehensive than it needs to be) insurance which employers currently provide. Our current system doesn’t allow a business to sell an insurance coverage which would cover only catastrophic injury or illness. Something with a high co-pay, but a low monthly free, which would protect those young, healthy Americans who would otherwise “go naked” from the sort of injury which can cause those high medical bills everyone fears. Think of it as liability-only car insurance. There are better market-based initiatives which can be done, for cheaper and with better results, than going ahead and sinking a trillion or two, in addition to the inevitable increase of gov’t intervention in our lives, through a gov’t health care plan.
I’m not arguing the metric is bogus. NR is saying that the US ranks 49th out of the countries in the world in life expectancy. It doesn’t, a dozen of the “countries” NR is referring to are no such things, and are, instead, tiny former European colonies which are still administered by their holders.
My point is that, when you’re comparing the US to a country like Germany you’re comparing a country with three times the population and a whole host of different races and ethnicities with each of their attendant illnesses. For example, Sickle Cell Anemia affects about 1,500 people in Germany. In America there are 80,000. A homogeneous population makes treating illness and diseases a lot easier and a lot cheaper. On that list the only “entity” even close to the US is the EU. It is about 1/3 larger, but also has a more heterogeneous population, including those recently admitted Eastern European countries you referred to. Also, I don’t know why you object to the inclusion of those countries as each and every one of them has a national health care option of some kind.
And the US includes Mississippi and West Virginia.
The current residency system drives people away from the medical profession. There is no reason to have doctors doing their residency put in the hours they do. It accomplishes nothing while possibly even leading to poorer care. The requirement to have licensed doctors prevents the opening of clinics in neighborhoods which can provide the sort of cheap, effective preventive care so many long for (malpractice insurance factors into this as well). Treatment currently administered by doctors for simple things like in-grown toenails don’t require doctors to perform, or even supervise. One doesn’t need to be a dentist to clean teeth, yet a group of highly qualified dental assistants couldn’t open their own business offering teeth cleaning, and nothing but teeth cleaning, because there needs to be a DD there. Changing the rules to open up competition would result in better care and be done for less money. Instead we’re going to be required to spend an extra $1,000,000,000,000.00 to break it even more.
This one. Take a sack lunch once a week for a year instead of eating out at lunch and use the savings to get your $300 annual check-up. Next question.
Sorry about your mom, hope she’s alright. Thankfully it didn’t happen in Canada where’d she’d be waiting 10 weeks for the MRI necessary. Luckily, if it was just an MCL tear, the treatment won’t be very expensive as it’s basically anti-inflammatory medication and rest.
Right winger “SFC B”: “a dozen of the “countries”” have all been listed in the CIA World Factbook as “countries” for years. Take it up with them.
“SFC B” you are changing the rules when it’s convenient.
Many of those “countries” you are denigrating were originally touted by Republican President Bush as the “Coalition of the Willing”.
Why do you hate American allies “SFC B”?
Right winger “SFC B” is following Republican Rule Number One: Rules Are For Other People.
Your complain that the tiny countries beating our American corporate-medical-industries health outcomes don’t count because they are tiny.
But the European Union, which has a considerably larger population beats US as well on multiple health metrics.
EU citizens live longer than US.
EU has a lower infant mortality rate than US.
And the EU spends less per capita and less as a percentage of GDP to achieve those superior health outcomes.
The European Union’s population is 491,582,852 (July 2009 est.).
Ours US population is 307,212,123 (July 2009 est.).
The EU’s population is ethnically diverse.
The EU’s diversity is reflected in it’s members languages: “Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, and Swedish”.
There are also a lot of Arabs in the EU that aren’t reflected in the major languages spoken.
Despite the EU’s significantly larger size and marked diversity, it still provides it’s citizens with longer lives, lower infant mortality rates, and all at a sharply lower cost.
Right winger “SFC B”: “in Canada … he’d be waiting 10 weeks for the MRI necessary”
In the US if she didn’t have health insurance and couldn’t afford it out of pocket she would NEVER get an MRI.
What’s an MRI out of pocket cost these days? A couple months rent? Three months without food?
Assuming she wasn’t just laid off because her job was outsourced to India or China….
‘Sorry about your mom, hope she’s alright. Thankfully it didn’t happen in Canada where’d she’d be waiting 10 weeks for the MRI necessary. Luckily, if it was just an MCL tear, the treatment won’t be very expensive as it’s basically anti-inflammatory medication and rest.’
Keep pulling those figures out of your ass; eventually you’ll find Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhardt up there as well.
I gave you a metric that is directly related to medical care: The treatment of a specific set of diseases with well known diagnostic criteria and treatments. Life span, infant mortality rates, those are figures that have so many variable as to be useless in measuring health care.
In other words you keep harping on the one metric that makes our health care system look good. Yet you continue to fail to provide any reason to think that the difference is a result of how health care is managed. I assume that if you could, you would have by now.
I’ll ask one more time the question which I’ve asked many times on ow.com and elsewhere. None of our wingnut brethren and sistren seems to be able to answer it:
How can France, Canada, etc. get comparable health outcomes by spending as little as half what we do on health care? Why can’t we do something like they do and cut our costs as well?
So far the only semblance of an answer I’ve seen is that we need to spend more so that our big pharma companies can do more r&d [and marketing] on new [snot and boner] drugs, but does that even come close to explain the vast difference in health care expenditures between us and them? Uh, no.
To help you wingnuts out, here are some possible answers. You can just pick one if you like.
1. Whatever system is enacted, we republicans will make sure it is starved of funds and resources so that it can’t operate efficiently.
2. Americans are dumber than the Canadians and Europeans – how do you think we got Bush elected – twice!!
3. We republicans will continue to starve the public education system of funds and resources, so the pool of competent, well-educated administrators for the system will remain low.
4. If we ever enact a national health care system, we wingnuts will go so batshit postal that the health system will be swamped by us shooting ourselves and each other with our constitutionally protected firearms.
5. It’s teh 6ov3rme3nt!!1one!!L So I don’t care if it could work on not, I just no likee.
Don’t like these answers? Give me your own, because I’m really having a hard time figuring you guys out.
Wilbur you use a great debating tactic, and start off with a statement that isn’t true.
“How can France, Canada, etc. get comparable health outcomes by spending as little as half what we do on health care? Why can’t we do something like they do and cut our costs as well?”
This is false. Canada and France’s outcomes are much worse for many different disease. Wait times are much longer, care is less complete, and overall disease outcomes are poorer.
Again, if you want to argue that you prefer a lesser health system, but one that covers everyone, then fine make that argument.
Right now the lefties are simply saying that they can get the Benz for the price of a Hyundai, and that simply isn’t possible.
I strongly believe that the health care delivery system in this country needs to be refined. I would limit for-profit health insurance companies, allow for national policies, and demand a uniform standard for billing. I think I would also follow the swiss policy and require insurance for every citizen.
The system isn’t perfect, but to throw the baby out with the bathwater and hand medicine over to the knuckleheads in Washington is a recipe for disaster.
By the way Parthenon, get back to me when you see the EOB (explaination of benefits) for your mothers care. If they pay 50 cents on the dollar for that bill I will be amazed.
“Republican failure at running government.”
when was the last time we had major health-care legislation and who wrote it? (Hint: it rhymes with Ked Tennedy.). If you’re so disgusted with the current system, why are you entrusting it’s architect to “reform” it?
Public Option Health Care Plan Saves Money
No shit.
To stretch the above metaphor, the Lions still play all 16 games. The anti-reformists are advocating we concede every game.
Maybe it’s because the VRWC recognizes that when the Federal government gets involved, the problem only gets worse.
Yes, the government can’t do anything right. In related news: Just the other day I passed by a WWII memorial. Many of the men there were on Medicare and receiving social security.
Wilbur you use a great debating tactic, and start off with a statement that isn’t true… Canada and France’s outcomes are much worse for many different disease. Wait times are much longer, care is less complete, and overall disease outcomes are poorer.
I suppose you’ve got some citations to back up these Delphic pronouncements? Cause I’ve certainly got a boatload that state pretty much the exact opposite. Just a small sample…
Nolte and McKee, Measuring The Health Of Nations: Updating An Earlier Analysis Health Affairs 27 (2008): 58-71. The gist: US comes in 19 out of 19 industrialized countries (including Canada and France) in the rate of deaths amenable to health care before the age of 75. In a similar study by the same researchers 10 years ago US came in 15 out of 19. We’ve gotten worse, and are spending more for it.
That noted commie rag Business Week specifically on France:
France’s infant death rate is 3.9 per 1,000 live births, compared with 7 in the U.S., and average life expectancy is 79.4 years, two years more than in the U.S. The country has far more hospital beds and doctors per capita than America, and far lower rates of death from diabetes and heart disease. The difference in deaths from respiratory disease, an often preventable form of mortality, is particularly striking: 31.2 per 100,000 people in France, vs. 61.5 per 100,000 in the U.S.
Karen E. Lasser,MD,MPH,David U. Himmelstein,MD,and Steffie Woolhandler,MD,MPH, Access to Care, Health Status, and Health
Disparities in the United States and Canada:
Results of a Cross-National Population-Based Survey, American Journal of Public Health 96 (2006).
Feel free to cherry-pick statistics on specific diseases, and continue to provide no evidence that the differences in these diseases is due to differences in the health care systems. Just be aware that the more you continue to do these things the less anyone is likely to take you seriously.
Right now the lefties are simply saying that they can get the Benz for the price of a Hyundai, and that simply isn’t possible.
Why would anyone, except someone with more money than he knows what to do with, own a Benz? Wasteful, horrible gas milage, exorbitant insurance rates, incredibly expensive and hard-to-find spare parts, and if you can find someone to service it he’ll charge you the rates of a brain surgeon. If you want something that will get you from home to work and the store safely, reliably, and affordably, and your not as rich as Croesus, you’re much better off with the Hyundai. Actually, Pedro, come to think of it that’s an excellent metaphor for the American health care system.
All that having been said, if, as is likely, the forces of darkness and profit scupper yet again the move to a rational system of universal healthcare, I do hope that at least we can enact some of the reforms you support, Pedro. It will be sort of like fixing the ice cream machine on the titanic but hey, I like ice cream.
Sorry, I see I left the summary off that third article:
In multivariate analyses, US respondents (compared with Canadians)
were less likely to have a regular doctor, more likely to have unmet health needs,
and more likely to forgo needed medicines.
And the question still remains unanswered:
How can France, Canada, etc. get comparable health outcomes by spending as little as half what we do on health care? Why can’t we do something like they do and cut our costs as well?
Many of the men there were on Medicare and receiving social security.
I’ll take “Name two government programs scheduled to go run out of cash within the next 15 years”, Alex.
The easy fix for Medicare and social security is a tiny tax increase but the right wing’s intention has always been to indebt the nation so badly that basic services would be eliminated even if it leaves American vets on the street.
It’s the “Two Santa Clause Theory” of “Republican “Economics”" and it’s an obscenity.
‘This is false. Canada and France’s outcomes are much worse for many different disease. Wait times are much longer, care is less complete, and overall disease outcomes are poorer.’
Total, unmitigated bullshit.
Where is your ‘evidence’ for these outrageous statements?
Sounds like the heartfelt hopes of a reality-detached moonbat. Oliver, spend a little more time understanding how healthcare really works instead of sucking in all the toxic central-planning fumes eminating in D.C.