Posted on 06/23/2009 11:36:59 AM PDT by curth
8 Myths About Health Care Reform and why we can't afford to believe them anymore:
Americans spend more on health care every year than we do educating our children, building roads, even feeding ourselves—an estimated $2.6 trillion in 2009, or around $8,300 per person. Forty-five million Americans have no health insurance whatsoever. These staggering figures are at the heart of the current debate over health care reform: the need to control costs while providing coverage for all. As John Lumpkin, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Health Care Group for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says, "There is enough evidence that it is now time to do something and to do the right thing." The key is to focus on the facts—and to dispel, once and for all, the myths that block our progress.
Myth 1: "Health reform won't benefit people like me, who have insurance." Just because you have health insurance today doesn't mean you'll have it tomorrow. According to the National Coalition on Healthcare, nearly 266,000 companies dropped their employees' health care coverage from 2000 to 2005. "People with insurance have a tremendous stake, because their insurance is at risk," says Judy Feder, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. What's more, in recent years the average employee health insurance premium rose nearly eight times faster than income. "Everyone is paying for health increases in some way, and it's unsustainable for everyone," says Stephanie Cathcart, spokesperson for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). "Reform will benefit everyone as long as it addresses costs.
Myth 2: "The boomers will bankrupt Medicare." If you're looking to blame the rise in health care costs on an aging population, you'll have to look elsewhere. The growing ranks of the elderly are projected to account for just 0.4 percent of the future growth in health care costs, says Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change. So why are health care costs skyrocketing? Ginsburg and others point to all those fancy medical technologies we now rely on (think MRIs and CT scans), as well as our fee-for-service payment system, in which doctors are paid by how many patients they see and how many treatments they prescribe, rather than by the quality of care they provide. Some experts say this fee-for-service payment system encourages overtreatment (see "Why Does Health Care Cost So Much?" from the July-August 2008 issue of AARP The Magazine).
Myth 3: "Reforming our health care system will cost us more."
“The growing ranks of the elderly are projected to account for just 0.4 percent of the future growth in health care costs, says Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change.”
Anyone who believes these statistics is just out to lunch. And whoever compiled them is just about as dishonest as they come. When I hear some moron telling me to think that CTs and MRIs are the cause of rising healthcare costs and then tell me that the rising numbers of elderly aren’t, I’d like to ask that buffoon what percentage of people who receive CTs and MRIs are under the age of 50.
There’s blatant dishonesty in this article.
And 20-million of them aren't even American citizens legally in the country.
“There’s blatant dishonesty in this article.”
....and it’s being eaten with a fork and spoon by the AARP members who get this crap delivered to their doors each month.
“And 20-million of them aren’t even American citizens legally in the country.”
That’s true. Give or take a few million. The American Academy of Surgeons estimates that 35-45% of the “47-million uninsured” in this country are illegal immigrants. You will never hear the weak stream media report this. That much is a given.
AARP is nothing more than the “old white folks” branch of outfits like ACORN.
I don’t know if it’s true but at the top of the page where this article is posted, AARP proclaims that their magazine is “The World’s Largest Circulation Magazine”. If true, that is scary.
At least you can shoot members of Al Quida.
They send me a membership form and I just put it in the recycle bin
Every time I go to the local library and see the crap liberal AARP rag magazine on display, I casually turn the magazine upside down and facing to the inside of the magazine rack.
Health Care Lie: '47 Million Uninsured Americans'
So what is the true extent of the uninsured “crisis?” The Kaiser Family Foundation, a liberal non-profit frequently quoted by the media, puts the number of uninsured Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and make less than $50,000 a year between 13.9 million and 8.2 million. That is a much smaller figure than the media report.
Kaiser’s 8.2 million figure for the chronically uninsured only includes those uninsured for two years or more. It is also worth noting, that, 45 percent of uninsured people will be uninsured for less than four months according to the Congressional Budget Office.
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2007/20070718153509.aspx
Ha. The commies at AARP. No need to read the article unless you are feeling masochistic.
Gee, who would have guessed it but our BETTERS — the so-called political elites who are running things (slap into the ground) in the country — HAVE EXEMPTED THEMSELVES from the “UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE” they have planned for us PEONS and PEASANTS. They — and their millions of bureaucratic minions — have a VASTLY SUPERIOR healthcare plan.
HEY — The term is UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. That means it covers the universe, i.e., the ENTIRE POPULATION. EVERYONE is covered by the SAME RULES and NOBODY is LEFT OUT!
If that IS what the Democrat political elites REALLY WANT, here’s the deal:
NO EXCEPTIONS!!!
No members of Congress or ANYONE in the White House running off to Walter Reed or Bethesda for that nasty ingrown toenail, hacking cough and spitting up blood. Take a number and wait in the same line the rest of us are.
That goes for your congressional and White House children and other family members! GET IN LINE!!! That REALLY LONG ONE that ends several blocks from Easy Street where YOU’VE been living all these years.
And if your UNIVERSAL RULES dictate that some life-saving treatment would be too expensive or not be cost-effective for you older members, here’s a twenty (the cost of a phone call once the TARP “money” hits the system) – call someone who cares.
Oh yeah – forgot the best part: If ANY of you are found to be availing yourselves of what idiot representative Fortney “Pete” Stark (as in “raving mad) from (where else) KAHLIFONIA once called “Boutique Medicine” (cute, huh?) by bypassing the universal system, not getting that needed treatment will be the least of your problems.
Use some of those free cell phone long distance minutes and call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and give YOUR congresscritter a piece of your mind while it’s still legal to do so.
And if you’re one of those NPR listeners who thinks “congress is pissing away our grandkids’ legacy (BTW, it;s already GONE!), doesn’t listen to us, wastes our “money,” refuses to close the borders, deport the illegals, etc., etc., ad nauseum — BUT MY CRITTER’S ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS” — check him out at http://www.gradegov.com/. Be sure you’re sitting down.
Stay strong and remember, WE SURROUND THEM! Let’s start acting like it!!
I stopped reading after the mention of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—commies who want single payer!
Gee, who would have guessed it but our BETTERS — the so-called political elites who are running things (slap into the ground) in the country — HAVE EXEMPTED THEMSELVES from the “UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE” they have planned for us PEONS and PEASANTS. They — and their millions of bureaucratic minions — have a VASTLY SUPERIOR healthcare plan.
HEY — The term is UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. That means it covers the universe, i.e., the ENTIRE POPULATION. EVERYONE is covered by the SAME RULES and NOBODY is LEFT OUT!
If that IS what the Democrat political elites REALLY WANT, here’s the deal:
NO EXCEPTIONS!!!
No members of Congress or ANYONE in the White House running off to Walter Reed or Bethesda for that nasty ingrown toenail, hacking cough and spitting up blood. Take a number and wait in the same line the rest of us are.
That goes for your congressional and White House children and other family members! GET IN LINE!!! That REALLY LONG ONE that ends several blocks from Easy Street where YOU’VE been living all these years.
And if your UNIVERSAL RULES dictate that some life-saving treatment would be too expensive or not be cost-effective for you older members, here’s a twenty (the cost of a phone call once the TARP “money” hits the system) – call someone who cares.
Oh yeah – forgot the best part: If ANY of you are found to be availing yourselves of what idiot representative Fortney “Pete” Stark (as in “raving mad) from (where else) KAHLIFONIA once called “Boutique Medicine” (cute, huh?) by bypassing the universal system, not getting that needed treatment will be the least of your problems.
Use some of those free cell phone long distance minutes and call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and give YOUR congresscritter a piece of your mind while it’s still legal to do so.
And if you’re one of those NPR listeners who thinks “congress is pissing away our grandkids’ legacy (BTW, it;s already GONE!), doesn’t listen to us, wastes our “money,” refuses to close the borders, deport the illegals, etc., etc., ad nauseum — BUT MY CRITTER’S ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS” — check him out at http://www.gradegov.com/. Be sure you’re sitting down.
Stay strong and remember, WE SURROUND THEM! Let’s start acting like it!!
“Uninsured” and “American” here are the misleading words.
The study that lead to that number asked if the subjects had at any time in the past year gone without health insurance, not even currently without, and included illegal aliens.
“Health reform won’t benefit people like me, who have insurance.”
I have a real problem with verbiage like this... it’s what got Obama elected.
“Reform” and “Change” don’t necessarily mean there will be a single outcome to the reform or change. For example, Obama hyped everyone up on doing what they want in the election, then got them chanting for “Change”. They all assume “Change” was the change they wanted. Now that “Change” is happening people realize it’s not what they wanted. I saw this coming and voted against the unspecified changes.
The same is true with reform. Reform and change can turn out to be whatever idea is created in the future, it is not limited to what already exists or has been debated. In fact, it is specifically anything but what currently exists.
So, whenever we vote for Change or Reform, like in 2008, it’s like signing a blank check. We need to know exactly what it means before we vote for it.
Another Brit lecturing us on healthcare reform. They just don’t freaking get it, brain dead. I am pro-life but I am starting to think abortion on demand for two liberal parents like this is completely ok, they should not breed. OK for you dummy liberal lurking please get a pen and paper...IT IS NOT IN OUR CONSTIUTION TO PROVIDE YOU AFFORDABLE ANYTHING. I don’t give a crap you can’t afford your medicine, tell me how that is my problem and what gives you the right to take my money. Shouldn’t have spent you lives smoking 5 dollar a pack cigarettes, swilling cheap beer and satiating your own hedonism. Yea I know the kid with one leg and 5 types of brain cancer may have to eat dogfood. We heard all your fictional or extremely rare gimp stories. But destroying the healthcare system for a free cure for the wolfboy does not make any sense. Urban vampire class chattle are driving the debate on this issue. We need a damn massive tax revolt, let Obama hit Hollywood and Marin county up for the money for all this garbage. My G*d he is a useless big eared chimp.
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