do you have...

[john250]

The biggest laugh in our US debate is the line about government cutting costs. If anyone thinks the government will cut the cost of healthcare, please enlighten me.

 

[Jogeephus]

The biggest laugh in our US debate is the line about government cutting costs. If anyone thinks the government will cut the cost of healthcare, please enlighten me.

I believe it could if it reprioritized its spending and spent less on dumb stuff and shifted this money toward something that actually made a difference to you and I. Do I think they are capable of doing this? :secret:

 

[Lammie]

It cracked me up when some health insurance started to cover medications like viagra but not birth control pills. Anyone else see the irony there?

I think health costs would go down if we concentrated on prevention rather than treatment. This year the school insurance is going to cover bariatric surgery. Really? So I can just get fat and then get a lap band? What is my reward for staying at a healthy weight? I figure that a lot of teachers where I work will take advantage of this, during the school year, naturally, so they will have to take two weeks off, and then the disctrict will have to pay for subs for them. No one seems to have any kind of procedure done during the summer months. I'm trying to get all my stuff out of the way now so I won't have to use my days for it. I might need them if Dad goes into hospice or something.

I missed one day of work because of illness this last school year. All the rest were taken because of issues with Mom. It amazes me how unhealthy some teachers are. I don't think that insurance should cover bariatric procedures, though. Just diet and exercise and lose the freakin weight.

Wait, that would require effort...

 

[john250]

The biggest laugh in our US debate is the line about government cutting costs. If anyone thinks the government will cut the cost of healthcare, please enlighten me.

I believe it could if it reprioritized its spending and spent less on dumb stuff and shifted this money toward something that actually made a difference to you and I. Do I think they are capable of doing this? :secret:

I'd guess you don't think they can cut costs. I know I don't.
I'd love a world where everyone can go to the doctor and it doesn't cost more than it does now. But more money available for health care just means the money will all get spent.
Whenever USDA announces some new program for farmers, the bright boys get to running their spreadsheets to "game" the program. And those are just the "dumb farmers". Imagine motivating doctors to "game" the program. (some of those MD's are pretty smart) The medical community will cry and whine, but they'll make money like they were given a printing press.
I don't have a problem with doctors making big $, if they make it giving compassionate, caring treatment to patients. I've just seen too many government programs where people haul corn from Indiana to S. Dakota for no purpose other than maximizing a government payment.
A local doctor recently went the "fee for service" route. Go see him and keep the insurance card in your wallet. Pay cash. I don't audit his books, but I think he is doing well. He no longer pays 2 nurses to fill out insurance forms and he doesn't have the time drain of doing that himself.
Don't you wonder how much of the health care bill is just for people filling out forms? It seems to me that any doctor worth seeing has two assistants, often with nursing degrees, filling out his insurance forms so he can get paid. The insurers have an equal number of people at desks checking that all the boxes are correctly filled out.
Had I been elected in 08, I would be proposing legislation which makes it illegal for anyone to pay someone else's medical bills. Doctors need to look their patients in the eye and say "here is what it will cost and this is how I expect to be paid".
My parents paid a grand total of $45 to the hospital when I was born in 1950. Dr. Marcella probably got that much more. So, I came in under $100. My daughter in 1986 cost about $1500. Her mother worked a deal through Planned Parenthood where the doctor cut his fee. (aside: he was an excellent doctor. Old Ky gentleman. Wife loved him. After the delivery, he pulled the batteries out of a smoke detector and we shared a cigarette) I wrote them a check and we were good to go. If we had been on good insurance, we would still have had a co-pay to deal with. The copay would likely have been about $1500. :frowns:
The US seems determined to expand the system we have, just transferring some of the system from insurance companies to govt beauracrats. The system which is already breaking us. Remember, GM failed because they were burdened with health care for hundreds of thousands of employees, many retired. Transferring that burden to the US is risking the same fate as GM.

 

[john250]

It cracked me up when some health insurance started to cover medications like viagra but not birth control pills. Anyone else see the irony there?

I think health costs would go down if we concentrated on prevention rather than treatment. This year the school insurance is going to cover bariatric surgery. Really? So I can just get fat and then get a lap band? What is my reward for staying at a healthy weight? I figure that a lot of teachers where I work will take advantage of this, during the school year, naturally, so they will have to take two weeks off, and then the disctrict will have to pay for subs for them. No one seems to have any kind of procedure done during the summer months. I'm trying to get all my stuff out of the way now so I won't have to use my days for it. I might need them if Dad goes into hospice or something.

I missed one day of work because of illness this last school year. All the rest were taken because of issues with Mom. It amazes me how unhealthy some teachers are. I don't think that insurance should cover bariatric procedures, though. Just diet and exercise and lose the freakin weight.

Wait, that would require effort...

People aren't dumb. "Gaming" the system which hands out benefits is as old as original sin. Two additional weeks vacation AND no effort weight loss. Sweet.

 

[HerefordSire]

Other than mandatory physicals, I have never been to the hospital. My sons have been independent for years. I have always maintained insurance coverage wherever possible until about 4-5 years ago.

While working at the office, I receive many new baby pictures of fellow covered employees. Seems to me, children are being born every where. There are about 14K people with my firm. Since I had twins about 26 years ago, I know what hospitals and doctors charge to have a child.

Then about 5 years ago, insurance rates where going through the roof. We would meet once a year to juggle all the difference coverages, like dental care, health care, etc. At this time one could elect to change coverage. I realized, even though I didn't have any dependent children, I was paying for others to have children. This didn't seem fair to me. If I want heart coverage, I should be able to purchase heart coverage, with an attached price depending upon statistics. Likewise, if I want cancer coverage, I should be able to buy cancer coverage.

Being a gambler by nature, I figured how I could generage $7,500 cash. All I would have to do is cancel my coverage for five years and take a chance nothing would happen. Sure enough nothing happen. I took the $7,500 and invested the money. Over time, it is now worth about $50K.

I should add...the $50K I saved by gambling...came from the doctor(s), not the other fellow employees.

 

[I luv herfrds]

Yes. My hubby has private and I'm on the state run health insurance. No private company would touch me since 1995.

 

[GMN]

I have found in the past when we were younger and had different coverage or no coverage, that the rates they charge for people with no insurance are quite a bit less than what they charge for people with insurance. I'm not sure what the answer to this problem is, premiums go up every year and the coverage down. I really like Europes health coverage, everyone is covered the same if you are poor or rich, everyone is offered the best coverage regardless-maybe that is something that would work here. is it fair that self employed people have to pay more, then the youngsters on welfare get free everything, they say its for the kids, but maybe if they can't afford the care and expense it takes to raise a child they shouldn't have them, because in effect we have to pay for all that too.

GMN

 

[Lammie]

The thing that Americans will not like about socialized medicine, and correct me if I am wrong, you Canadians, is that Americans will not tolerate the government telling them what procedures they can and can't have and what doctor to go to. I liked my HMO, personally, but a lot of folks will not tolerate going to a doctor that they did not choose. Likewise with procedures, and once again, correct me if I am wrong, but socialized medicine is basically health care rationing. In other words, you can't get a two liver transplants, or even one, if you are not healthy enough to be of any used afterward, you might have to use a midwife to have a baby if you are having a healthy pregnancy, you might have to wait or not receive elective surgery...

I don't have issues with any of that. Micky Mantle was a drunk and he had, what three livers? And died anyway? I bet there were two other families that wanted those organs for their loved ones. And he probably shouldn't have received the first one, being as he as a famous alcoholic. Larry Hagman had two, didn't he? Of course, rich people can go wherever and get what they want done, but that's just an example. I had my last child with a midwife and it was great. Mostly... But I'd do it again.

We want it all! And we aren't willing to wait for it or be on a list or to be told that it is not necessary. We want to get fat and get a lap band.

I'm oversimplifying it, I know.

 

[Frankie]

I'm fully in support of the public option for people.

Health care in this country is already rationed. Insurance companies make the final decision about whether a medical procedure is necessary; not the patient; not the doctor. Instead of treating patients, doctors spend hours each week negotiating with insurance companies to get approval for needed medical tests. Then they spend their time working with patients on how to pay the part of the bills that their insurance didn't pay. We pay more per person for medical care than any other country and are not at the top in life expectency, infant mortality, etc.

We should be seeing the outlines of the health care reform bill soon. It's my understanding that most people will have the OPTION to enroll in a government plan. It won't be free. A school teacher friend told me he pays $500 a month to keep his wife on his insurance. School teachers don't make big bucks here in OK so that's a big burden on them. It should help small businesses, too.

There was a study a few years ago that showed hospitals actually charged people WITHOUT insurance more than they charged people with insurance. So those folks got a double whammy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/02/us/me ... rance.html

 

[1982vett]

So, once we have socilized medicine in place, how long will it be before supplement insurance will be available for purchase to cover what socialized medicine won't? That would be the American way, would it not?

 

[chrisy]

Different here we have the NHS National Health Service it is abused left right and centre, mainly by the Immigrants, we pay quite a big percentage out of our earnings, and you have no choice, for the free care we receive but it is still a lottery as to where you live, as to what kind of care you get some Counties wont pay for certain drugs I am lucky I have a good Doctors Surgery. I feel the people who come over from other Countries should not just get our health service because they now live here, they should have to pay taxes and national health contributions for at least 10 years to get half the cost and 20 years for full cost. Then perhaps the service would'nt be in the mess it is in today.

 

[Lammie]

So, once we have socilized medicine in place, how long will it be before supplement insurance will be available for purchase to cover what socialized medicine won't? That would be the American way, would it not?

When my parents went on Medicaid, I found out that they would still need their Medicare and their Medicare supplement. What??? Medicaid pays for that, but I had no idea they would need it. It's insane.

 

[perda04]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07162009/ne ... 179525.htm

Congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul could have a job-killing effect on New York, creating a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for the state's top earners and possibly pressuring small-business owners to shed workers.

New York's top income bracket could reach as high as 57 percent -- rates not seen in three decades -- to pay for the massive health coverage proposed by House Democrats this week.

 

[Lammie]

And if this goes through there will still be uninsured people, whether by choice or by circumstance, who will still use the ER as their primary physician. I don't see that it would change things that much except to make prices go up along with unemployment. Even if you make healtcare "affordable", there will still be folks who cannot afford it.

The only way to make healthcare affordable again is to keep illegals out of the ER, and to take all the red tape out of going to the doctor. And to get the AMA and phamacutical lobby out of DC. It's the dam drug companies that booger things up. Even if you can afford to go to the doctor, the price of medications is rediculous. If you don't have a drug plan you are screwed. Talk about the 50K toilet seat...