Posted on 08/04/2017 11:41:01 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
There's nothing like the sight of Republicans and Democrats working together and scrambling to save big time government aid to super-rich corporations. Whether it's a bailout for major banks, tax credits for Big Oil, or big subsidies for large agriculture businesses, this kind of crony capitalism seems to anger almost everyone but nobody really does anything about it.
Now, we're about to witness another scramble to provide our hard-earned taxpayer money into the pockets of an industry that's already raking in the big bucks. The Senate Health Committee is going to hold hearings in September to find ways to keep the Obamacare subsidies sent to health insurance companies alive so the insurance exchanges don't implode as so many people are predicting.
And the preservation of those payouts to the super-profitable insurers is a pretty good bet considering even the Republicans couldn't round up 50 votes to repeal Obamacare and do what they had promised for seven years running. It's also a good bet because the pressure is rising to save Obamacare from all sides. There's even a warning from some liberal advocates not to dare call the insurance subsidy preservation effort a "bailout" because it's such a loaded term and it's the people we'll be bailing out and not some rich CEOs after all, right?
Whatever happened to those familiar Democratic Party mantras of "paying their fair share" and "those millionaires and billionaires don't need our money!" Whatever happened to familiar quasi-socialist/left wing calls for price controls? We certainly hear all of the above when it comes to Big Pharma for one thing. And why is the insurance industry getting not just a pass, but an enthusiastic, code red style, protection? In other words, the government has provided the big insurance companies with a policy that's led to massive profits.....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
No insurance bailout.
No government monopoly healthcare either.
“If the insurance companies can find a way to be profitable without undue and unfair help from Uncle Sam, God bless them. If they can’t, it shouldn’t be the taxpayers job to keep them afloat.”
Yes, and do you remember when it all started turning to $hit? That was when the insurance companies said: “Let us deal directly with your doctors and everyone who has a share in your healthcare. You don’t need to be bothered with submitting claims. We’ll do all that “for you!” And once you didn’t ever see what’s being billed, they all colluded to drive up the total cost of your care. There was nothing wrong with paying directly out of your pocket for a doctor’s visit when it was ten bucks, but now it’s at least $200 for twenty minutes and the bastard spends about half that time typing on the computer in the exam room, “building your dossier” on the state of your health so some bureaucrat can decide when you’ve become too expensive and need to “move on!” “Medical record keeping” has become the paramount reason for seeing your doctor, and that record is like a roach motel in that conditions are logged in, but the seldom “go away.” Every time your fart, it’s cast in stone.
In 2010, the per capita cost for all persons on Medicaid was $5,000.
We could have put every uninsured American on Medicaid for $200 billion, and probably less, since so many were healthy.
Wait times for Medicaid appointments and treatments would have gone up, but so what, since they would have been no longer than the wait times that already exist under national health care in Canada and the UK.
Barack Obama increased the national debt by $8 trillion, from $12 trillion to $20 trillion.
Who would have even noticed another trillion dollars?
Instead, we got ObamaCare, which most GOP Senators and Congressmen still want to keep and improve!
The whole point of insurance in the first place is to mitigate financial risk.
But with the insurance-government cartel that has been imposed on us, the insurance industry has now BECOME one of Americans’ greatest financial risks - a risk that, ironically, there is no way to insure against.
This forty million without health insurance in 2010....is a myth piece.
It’s a fairly wide group. You had some folks who were in the 18 to 30 age group....good health...seeing no reason to spend money on health care. You had another group who had serious long-term health issues, and would never be able to afford insurance. You had some folks who believed in a cash-situation (lot of farmers fit into that deal). Throw in the Amish crowd (270,000).
Would you say the problem starts with the gov’t tax break scheme tying health insurance to employers?
I would tie it to the imposition of the Income Tax.
Concierge Medicine
Bingo! This whole mess could be solved with everyone having a HSA the contributions to which are 100% tax free. This could never happen under our current tax structure though because it would remove these monies from the "system" so the government wouldn't get their cut of the take and neither would the insurance companies.
Everything that people can get insurance for becomes more expensive. Dental and veterinary bills, for example, used to be affordable. People made responsible decisions about the level of care to choose, when they were paying for it. It seems that in the two fields I mentioned, a critical mass of insured has been achieved and it's getting unaffordable.
Good point. New rates are out for 2018. In my area, a couple age 60 will have non subsidized premiums of ~$30K for cheap bronze plans and ~$40K for gold plans. In all likelihood they will pay premiums well over $200K before Medicare kicks in. It might be even worse in other parts of the country. If people know they are healthy, why would anybody pay this? I'd either take one for the team or structure my income so I get subsidies.
For those who choose. Also, walk-in 24/7 clinics that had a preference for inexpensive solutions for those who prefer a looser style of healthcare. Everyone pays something, with a sliding scale. Hospitals complain about ER costs for the uninsured they "have to cover". Wouldn't be a problem if every ER had to have one of these clinics on their grounds, with those who don't need the ER directed to it.
Nobody is talking about restraining costs. Some of these solutions are so obvious yet not discussed. It's how we know the whole "repeal" initiative is a farce.
I remember when they sold mandatory car insurance in CT. The argument was that when everyone was in the pool it would drive the cost down. It never occurred to the dupes that voted for it that you were taking a good that has limited supply (More so because they were limiting the insurers to CT companies) and pushing the demand to maximum.
Soon a policy that used to cost 180 bucks a year cost 800 bucks and a fender that you could get for 75 bucks cost 450.
Healthcare insurance hasn’t been about unpredictable risks in a long long time, otherwise we’d all just have disaster coverage
Pull the plug on socialism. It does not work.
Massive profits? Is that why they are pulling out of Obamacare?
>>“Medical record keeping”
Offshore.
[FakeEnglish Accent-ON]
Hello My name is “Bob”, how I can help you today?
[FakeEnglish Accent-OFF]
https://www.medquestltd.com/how-offshoring-medical-records-services-reduces-litigation-costs/
Yet for $165 per month you can get health coverage through a Christian provider with a $500 deductible...
>>Healthcare insurance hasn’t been about unpredictable risks in a long long time,
Uhuh. A culture of morbidly obese, corn-syrup fed, cash cows.
Funny how the Pharmasurance syndicate diversifies its farm stock.
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