Posted on 11/17/2014 9:08:26 AM PST by PROCON
But we’re talking medical insurance premiums here, and I haven’t seen any studies that suggest that tort reform has reduced those.
Really? Based on what?
You should 'bargain' with your doctor or shop around. Cash is always king.
You can already shop around. There are any number of websites that will compare costs for common procedures in your area. But if you have a heart attack or are in a car accident are you going to hold off treatment until you do your due dilligence?
That’s me exactly. I remember when I started contracting in IT back in the mid-1990’s. I could get $55 an hour, straight time, including overtime hours, Or I could get $50 an hour with “marginal” health insurance, a few sick days, etc.
I went for the raw hourly rate every time. I got my family $5,000 deductible insurance and it stayed with me no matter who I was contracting with. And one day my daughter broke her arm. All of it was paid for out of pocket. The entire bill was $275.
Yeah, it's called a profit margin and an increase to that.
I’m in favor of a hybrid system.
We abolish the exchanges and create a free market for those who can afford to buy their own health insurance and let affluent and middle class Americans choose a health care plan that best suits their needs.
We keep the expanded single payer Medicaid for the poor and working class by enfolding it into Medicare. That means the most vulnerable segments of our population get basic medical care at no cost.
When people move up the income ladder, they should be able to get the health care plan they want.
We can change the health care system to favor choice and also answer Democratic charges we’re abandoning the vulnerable to poor health.
The premise should be Canada’s single payer system wouldn’t work for every one here - and it works well for some but not for others. And people who can pay should take charge of taking care of their own health.
I feel a hybrid system is best suited for our country and our size and circumstances make us unique. A Republican approach should be fiscally responsible and compassionate and ensure no American will have to die for want of seeing a doctor and to cover catastrophic health care costs so its not a drain on families’ pocketbooks.
We should reject the Democratic approach that says government knows best and we should reject the approach there is a one size fits all solution to a very complex problem. Addressing health care won’t be easy but this is probably a good place to start. Any reform is going to be a messy compromise that leaves no one entirely happy but that will make sure there are more winners than losers.
Above all, no health care reform will succeed long-term on a partisan basis. We must not give in to the arrogance and hubris that drove the Democrats to ram down an unpopular health care reform down the throat of the country on a party-line vote.
How long before a pharmacutical company or an insurance company doesn’t need all that profit?
In the case of my wife and I, we have NO health insurance (sinc obamacare kicked in) and take responsibility in our health via what we eat and how we live. We’re both almost 61 and have not NEEDED to see a doctor in years. And even when we did, it was minor (cheap) stuff.
In one case, they told me that if I wanted to just pay for it out of pocket it would be $10 less than the copay if I used my insurance.
Think about THAT one for a minute. And what it implies. :-)
Ah.
I don’t recall ever hearing abut them until right after Hillarycare flopped.
Free markets. Subsides have been keeping prices high. You know that.
You can already shop around. There are any number of websites that will compare costs for common procedures in your area. But if you have a heart attack or are in a car accident are you going to hold off treatment until you do your due dilligence?
Good. You already know to shop around and get the required catastrophic insurance to cover your worst cases and have something else to pay as needed.
I’d be for that if it included two aspects:
1. All doctor visits cost at least 3 times the hourly minimum wage in the geographical area where treatment is received as a “copay”.
2. A person has a lifetime limit of 5 years in which they can take advantage of the service.
Yeah, it’s called a profit margin and an increase to that.
This phrase is being used to set the agenda, “GOP needs an alternative [to Obamacare]”
The GOP needs to have a response, but not necessarily an alternative. It is not the governments role to provide, encourage, penalize, extort, or whatever, anything related to healthcare.
Why can’t all the people who need to be covered be put on Medicaid? Most of them are now anyway.
One was to make health insurance portable nationally, and eliminate the monopolies and oligopolies enjoyed by the several very large insurance in the individual states.
Another was tort reform, which would reduce malpractice insurance rates and frivolous lawsuits.
I would propose that individuals and small businesses get to deduct all their health care and health insurance costs, just like corporations do.
There are plenty of conservative ideas; there always have been. The problem is that our media outlets serve as the propaganda wing of a hideously evil political machine.
As I pointed out, healthy affluent people subsidize what used to be called the “uninsured.”
Every one gets covered. People who want more coverage or specialized non-life saving treatment should pay for it.
Ideally, we’d abolish co-pays and deductibles. After all, whether the vehicle is the state or free market insurers, the costs should be paid up front.
Obamacare doesn’t work because the deductibles kick in before you’re covered. The coverage should pay for health care either out of taxes or out of premiums once you see a doctor or are admitted into the hospital.
It was meant to show that Rs had some ideas.
Some of your comments are good, some lack breadth (i.e. you forgot the catastrophic coverage component of MSAs).
Yes, some are the same as Obamacare.
For me, lawyers are the biggest cause of much waste and high costs in America. They become our representatives, after all.
Insurance costs had been going up rapidly before Obamacare. I can't see how you can blame it solely on that.
Good. You already know to shop around and get the required catastrophic insurance to cover your worst cases and have something else to pay as needed.
I like the coverage my company offers. It covers a lot more than catastrophic cases and I'm not open to anyone forcing me to give it up.
Not if the competition kept the savings as well.
They are.
And its cheaper for taxpayers to have them see a doctor and get basic health care rather than wait until they’re sick and treating them gets to be expensive.
Prevention is worth a pound of cure. Health care reform needs to focus on a preventive-based approach so people don’t have to get sick in the first place.
No matter who provides and pays for health care, this is going to be the direction we’ll have to take to get health care costs under control.
Can you please define what is ‘prevention “ based healthcare?
It is a definition always being bandied around by the left.
There is nothing a physician can do to you to help prevent disease, except for monitoring blood pressure and cholesterol, regular paps and mammograms, and colon cancer screening.
The rest is really up to the patient. That means- no obesity, limit alcohol intake, dont drink and drive, no smoking.etc.
This whole prevention idea is a bunch of hogwash.There is very few areas that prevention would make much of a difference.
To think that the healthcare system, and your PCP- can really do much to prevent disease is not accurate.
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