Posted on 10/03/2016 5:24:43 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The whole idea behind the scam known as Obamacare — from its Stalinist passage along a strict party line vote, to its ludicrous state “exchanges,” to its predictably parlous financial condition, to its misuse of a politicized IRS to act as its enforcer, to its destruction of the reputation of a pusillanimous and cowardly chief justice John Roberts — was to wreck the American private-insurance industry so dramatically that a demoralized and anxious public would demand socialized medicine, aka a “single-payer” system.
That day is now here. […]
The departing president, the woman who seeks to replace him and nearly one-third of the Senate have endorsed a new government-sponsored health plan, the so-called public option, to give consumers an additional choice. A significant number of Democrats, for whom Senator Bernie Sanders spoke in the primaries, favor a single-payer arrangement, which could take the form of Medicare for all.Yeah, like Medicare — which is basically insolvent — is so great. …
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Is there a ‘right’ way to shop for medical care?
Emergencies offer no choice, obviously, but can you elaborate on shopping for routine care, or is a procedure needs to be done?
Is it just a matter of making the phone calls and asking point blank what do they charge for such and such?
it benefited government by making it larger
*************
And that larger government was spread across many federal agencies because Obamacare was a multi-headed hydra that reached into nearly every federal agency (at least 20 of them, including the IRS). Imagine the increased potential for steering large contracts to favored political cronies. Jus sayin it might have happened. That’s all.
Protection of the medical cartels' profit margins and their attendant political contributions was the main goal. Think EpiPen - those are the kind of companies who really drove the law. Common sense would have eliminated both insurance and RICO-violating cartel pricing, and returned medical fare to a competitive, free market, fee-for-service model - resulting in 80-90% price drops.
Instead, we will get a form of single-payer that gives the medical cartels roughly the same pricing protections that defense contractors currently enjoy - and for the same reasons.
Is it just a matter of making the phone calls and asking point blank what do they charge for such and such?
There was a John Stossel show on it a few years before Obamacare where he talked about the Whole Foods plan. One employee shopped around for a physical and found the price ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand. The funny part was that some places had a hard time even coming up with a price.
That last part is the most telling. Health care needs to be treated like other services. Lasik has a price list. The reason is simple: health insurance usually does not cover it. And, considering what you are getting, it is absurdly cheap. Don’t you love free markets? :-)
Furthermore, although my argument is that it is necessary for some people to purchase insurance, don’t assume that just because one makes too much money and does NOT meet the 8% threshold, that he can afford the insurance he still out of necessity decides to buy. When the government set up it’s “Affordability” scale, no one ever asked the consumer if he had a mortgage, was in debt, how many children he had to feed, had a car payment, or if a large oak tree had just fallen on his house. They just blithely assumed what was and was not affordable. Of course, none of it matters, because we know what they really planned to do all along: fail, and introduce single payer. And you can bet your boots on THAT not being optional.
It all matters. It’s a VERY big deal to me.
And here is a weird side effect: It’s forcing me to keep my TAXABLE income flat to avoid the penalty. I’m sure a lot of small businesses are FORCED to stay below that 50 employee line or see a dramatic, show stopping rise in the cost of labor.
Obamacare is dramatically squelching growth in this country. I have no doubt a lot of people and businesses have decided on a ceiling and just learned to live with it. This is very much like the old soviet union in many ways.
I hear the national anthem and when it gets to “land of the free” I just scoff.
My doctor lives in his parent’s basement!
You scoff? Well, just don’t kneel. But, yes, the Soviet Union analogy is appropriate. It’s all straight out of the Karl Marx handbook. First, we take over the banks. Meet Dodd-Frank. Next, we take over healthcare. Meet Obamacare and the plan for it to fail so that they can issue in single payer.
The Medicare payroll tax is 2.9%. It applies only to earned income, which is wages you are paid by an employer, plus tips. You’re responsible for 1.45% of the tax, and it’s deducted automatically from your paycheck. Your employer pays the other 1.45%.
You pay the Medicare tax out of every pay check along with your SS tax. Then you pay Medicare Premiums when you go on Medicare. Federal and State Income taxes are still paid even after you retire on pensions and any income you earn from investments.
If you are Retired Military over 65 you are put on Tricare Life which is a secondary arm of Medicare. Medicare automatically files it. It pays the 20% of drug/test cost that Medicare A/B doesn’t cover. IF it is a covered item; not every drug or medical test is covered or it needs approval. Good luck getting it. It’s a secondary coverage. There are co-pays that vary by drug, the newer the drug the higher the co-pay. DOD MANDATED 2015 that all Tricare Life fill prescriptions at a Military Base drug availability is dependent on Base size and is not set up for Handicapped seniors, or use Express Scripts, known for Fraud, and subbing Dispense As Written meds with generics or sending the wrong meds. NEVER give them your credit card or do auto pay write a check or send a money order. It is shoved in your mail box by USPS UN signed for. We get our neighbors on occasion as there are several Retired Military in our neighborhood over 65. Both are very cumbersome systems.
Only exceptions are an emergency 1 time script that can be filled any place Tricare Life is accepted. Walgreen’s is not one of them. They refused Express Scripts ridiculous reimbursement contract. If you need chronic pain med your script has to have the wording FOR CHRONIC PAIN and it is restricted by the NEW Pain Med Laws to boot. 1 month scripts for narcotics like NORCO no refills. Valium is a 1 month script with 2 refills. Forcing you to pee in a cup every month or 3 months like a junkie. And they are reducing the dosages even if you have intractable severe pain from diseases that have no cures.
Meanwhile ‘clean shoot up rooms’ are being set up for heroin addicts so they don’t spread HIV via dirty needles and have a clean safe place to ‘shoot up’...government provides the needles. Noting is said about the spread of HIV via sex but I supposed free condoms are plentiful at such sites.
Hurt a lot of family owned pharmacies and Walgreen’s does not take Tricare Life.
Makes you totally depended on the feds for your healthcare and all fees and prices are SET! Reimbursement is slow and low. Which is why many doctors are not taking new Medicare patients and have signs up in their offices saying so. Many will tell you they don’t take Tricare Life. That is not so, if they take Medicare they must accept Tricare Life. They cannot bill you for the 20% that Medicare does NOT cover. Even if all you get is 10 pills you pay a full month’s co-pay. Even if you use VA disability services and they write you a script and they fill it you pay the co-pay.
Trump needs to hit it hard these last few weeks.
I do not know where they get their numbers when they report an average nation-wide rise in premiums of 8%. State after state has double digit increases of 20% to 50% AND insurers are dropping the exchanges as quick as they can.
This is a winning argument.
USE IT, Donald.....hammer it and her with it.
Forget the bimbo crap. You have Benghazi, Zerocare, JOBS as well as her positions on coal etc.
CRUSH her.
Thanks Mr. D.
And yes, I do like the free market - except when it inflicts pain!
Thank you. I appreciate the addition of how that impacts retirees (I only did 8+ years). One thing you might remember is that the 1.45% a person pays into Medicare HAS NO INCOME LIMIT as does FICA.
You might also be interested in (or neglected to mention) that INCOME LIMITS are applied to the incomes you an have while on Medicare and that something called MAGI which can cause one to pay dearly above that minimum payment out of your social security check. I know. I got caught one year and it cost me DOUBLE!
Last time I was at my doctor’s office who I’d been with going on 25 years and said “I’m going on Medicare. Are you gonna drop me now?”
I have frequent blood draws, and all they want to use are a cotton ball and a cheap adhesive bandage which some cause skin rash, instead of the expensive self wrap bandage that puts pressure on the puncture site. Band Aid is a brand name. Well that does not put enough pressure on the punctured site so I bleed rather freely and have a huge ugly purple bruise for 2 weeks. Not to mention the scarring that to frequent blood draws cause as the IV Pic or butterfly is usually to large for small veins. One size does not fit all there, I’ve had blown veins from to large a gauge IV Pic or butterfly. DUMBOCARE in action.
“Instead, we will get a form of single-payer that gives the medical cartels roughly the same pricing protections that defense contractors currently enjoy - and for the same reasons.”
Now it makes sense. Those rats...
aarp is making a killing off selling supplemental policies.
Lets not forget the $60 billion + MEDICARE FRAUD yearly. Medicaid fraud is just as bad.
Right, but I was addressing the fact that obamacare was designed to wreck the insurance companies, not the crony capitalism part to enrich them in the mean time.
In my post, I asked: “If the ACA was designed not only to fail but to ‘wreck the American private-insurance industry so dramatically’, why did the insurance companies go along with it?”
Carly did not address the end game as far as I know.
” ObamaCare was always destined to crack up, but there is something notable that it comes precisely as so much control of Washington is up for grabs. (Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ... “
Watch the R’s vote to fund the parts that are cracking up in the lame duck session.
“...why did the insurance companies go along with it?”
Because Obama promised them that anyone who didn’t buy their product would get a big fat fine from the IRS. A crony corporatist’s dream. And, the risk corridors were the government insuring the insurance companies against losing money. The only good thing R’s have done in healthcare in the past 8 years was to defund the risk corridors. Now insurance companies that sell on the exchange have to actually break even on the insurance. And that exposes the fundamental bankruptcy of Obamacare.
Imagine if the government ran car insurance the way it does health insurance under Obamacare. You only want minimal liability coverage for your 10 year old compact sedan but, you would be forced to buy the government standard policy that covers an SUV, motor home, motorcycle and boat. If you fail to buy car insurance because it is too expensive you will be fined with fines exceeding the value of your car. While you may have a perfect driving record and no accidents you cannot get a preferred rate because your insurance company must issue policies to all drivers no matter what their driving record or number of accidents. The cost of insuring them causes the price of your policy to skyrocket. Government “green panels” will soon be determining if you can continue to own your vehicle because it is seen as too polluting, too big for your needs according to government standards or not getting enough gas mileage.
It was designed to fail. That was the whole reason to pass the damn thing, so the fascists could then cry over the collapse of health care in this country and force single payer, government control of eugenics based "health care" on us.
warning - rant on
Does anyone really believe they fight so hard for the Margaret Sanger abortion factories without having every intention of building on them the whole apparatus they've been aiming at since before WWII that will "purify" the population?
People need to wake up. Hitler based all of his eugenics programs and propaganda squarely on what Sanger preached and what was implemented as law in numerous US States.
Hitler and Nazis said, "Saturday first, then Sunday", that is, first the Jews then the Christians.
It's gotten to the point that, just like in 30s Germany, the majority of the clergy in this country are more than happy to go along to get along rather than standing up and fighting. Don't believe it? How often do church leaders speak out about massive abortion and especially, about contraception, the handmaiden to abortion? Democracy? Consider the fact that nearly 80% of adult Americans believe abortion is murder and should be drastically limited. Democracy doesn't matter when it comes to the eugenics agenda which, by the by, includes encouraging homosexual relationships and the forced sterilization of those the government deems "unfit".
The USSC has already upheld the right of the government to sterilize anyone for any reason (Buck v Bell - anyone the government deems "feeble minded") so it's only a matter of when the fascists feel strong enough to implement that government authority. Hillary has already said, publicly and on multiple occasions, that "religious beliefs have to change". Next, declare anyone who hangs onto their guns and God feeble minded individual and there you have. The USSC has already settled the issue, no court battles to delay the implementation.
Catholics were the only large, politically significant, organized group not willing to go along. Look at the hundreds of millions of dollars and untold millions of man hours the fascist left through people like Alynsky invested in infiltrating, bribing, and slandering the Catholic Church including "outing" the very perverts they worked hard to move into positions within the Catholic Church.
That's no accident, that's no intrinsic flaw in Catholicism, it's what happens to Christians when the machinery of big money and big government join together to go after those who dare to stand up to the government against contraception and abortion, pillars of the eugenics agenda.
That all the other Christian groups in this country rolled over on the issue because the sinners wallets in the pews wanted consequence free sex and abandoned any church continuing to preach against it doesn't alter the facts. The facts are that any organized group that has resisted the eugenics agenda since it blossomed in the 20s is targeted, attacked, and either destroyed outright or undermined no matter how long that takes.
Politically, powerful block of Irish in Philly or Poles in Chicago? No problem, "Urban Renewal" breaks up those districts better than gerrymandering ever could. As a bonus, it also concentrates one of the main targets of the eugenics crowd in cities on government plantations. Southern Bible Belt voters sending real conservatives to Washington far too often? No problem, the Federal Government takes over rights reserved to the States and makes sure that doesn't happen anymore.
Unfortunately, the majority of the people in this country still go along to get along, anxious to have someone tell them anything that rocks their boat is nothing but a "conspiracy theory" only nuts believe.
Since the Jews aren't wearing yellow stars and being put on trains yet the majority of hedonist, "I got mine, eff you", people in this country who pretend to be Christian haven't realized what's going on, in spite of the fact that ten times as many people having already been slaughtered in US death factories as Hitler slaughtered in his death factories.
rant off
JMHo
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