So what to do? Here's my idea and it's pretty simple. It centers around a principal mandated in my State as part of auto insurance called "Uninsured Motorists". Yes, part of my premium is to pay for accidents that people with no insurance cause. So, taking that a step further.
1) Private Health/medical practices and plans stay untouched. If you have it, keep it. If you like your Dr. - keep him/her. No changes.
2) If you do not have insurance, you will get a FEDERAL VOTING/MEDICAL ID card similar to a drivers license. If you get sick, you go to the Dr. of your choice, or to the hospital of your choice and you pay a small co-pay, let's say $20 and that's it. The Dr./Facility then bills the US Government who settles the bill.
3)Because the Government is dumb, they'll need to know how much to pay the provider. My plan would commission a panel of experts: Doctors, Nurses, Techs, HHS Secretary, Several High Ups at HealthCare Insurance companies and some Czar that POTUS appoints to oversee it all. They will determine the AVERAGE cost that insurance companies pay for all possible procedures. You know, you get a $5,000 x-ray bill, the negotiated price is $300, the insurance pays $280 and you pay $20. This will be agreed upon by the panel and PUBLISHED. The government will then pay the provider.
4) OK, so how to pay for this? a) Charge people an additional payroll tax. Yes, it hurts, I know. But it will be small. Like 1/4 of 1% on earned salary with NO CAP. (i.e. Uninsured Motorists) b) Businesses to pay an additional 1/4 of 1% just like they match the other half of payroll taxes. c) Create a Federal Annual Report Fee that is levied upon EVERY business entity conducting business in the US. This is solely for the privilege of doing business. No long laws. Floating Scale - $100 per year for the smallest entities up to $10,000 per year for the Amazons of the world. Tie it to gross sales. IRS sends the bill on a postcard. d) All of these charges must go 100% to the "Uninsured Medical" fund. By Amendment to the US Constitution. No diverting the money. e)All new payroll taxes are permanently capped. No increasing them in the future. This will also be part of the Constitutional Amendment. f)Obamacare is repealed.
Now, I realize these percentages may be off slightly. This is a simple, simple model. But why can't this work? The people in the government out of work because of the Obamacare repeal will monitor the new Annual Report Fee and be the ones administering the new US Medical plan. The interest earned on the "Uninsured Fund" gets plowed back into the fund - by Constitutional Amendment. No of this stuff can legally be diverted to ANY other use.
OK, I stand ready for your questions and/or abuse. :)
Sounds like Medicare for all.
Anything can work if you throw enough money at it, and I highly doubt your .25% payroll tax is going to come close to paying for it. My company covers 85% of my insurance premium and it costs them a whole lot more than .25% of my salary. And as companies eliminate their own insurance plans and force their employees onto the government plan, or as employees abandon their employer plan and jump on the government plan, which only costs them .25% of their salary, you'll see the costs rise into they hundreds of billions of dollars of additional spending each year.
>>No one wants government to be running healthcare. No one wants to see private industry decimated.
This is incorrect. The Rats want exactly that, and more.
How about this solution: “everyone pays for their own dang healthcare.” It’s time we re-defeated communism.
.25% HC tax.
My wife and I made combined last year slightly under $200k.
Your .25% tax is $4900 based upon 200k.
Our combined monthly health insurance premium right now is $1540 per month with a $7900 deductible each.
“2) If you do not have insurance, you will get a FEDERAL VOTING/MEDICAL ID card similar to a drivers license.”
If this was the case every business in the US would drop their health insurance plans overnight.
TUIB...I believe you got lost on your way to DU. You wrote “But it will be small. Like 1/4 of 1% on earned salary”
You have to be kidding, right?
Income Tax: In 1913, the top tax bracket was 7% on all income over $500,000 ($11 million in today’s dollars); and the lowest tax bracket was 1%. “It will never go higher” said the pols.
Social Security: In 1937, it was 1% on the first $3,000 of income. “It will never go higher” said the pols. Prior to 1991, Social Security and Medicare contributions were combined in a single tax.
Medicare Tax: In 1991, it was 1.45% on first $125,000 of income. “It will never go higher” said the pols. Now it is 1.45% on all income and an additional 0.9% over $200,000.
California Sales Tax: In 1933, California introduced its sales tax at a rate of 2.5%. “It will never go higher” said the pols. (LA County is now 10% on EVERYTHING you purchase).
Pardon me for being blunt, but you are naive.
How about we get back to people taking care of themselves and not the nanny state which saps more of our freedom every day of the year?
“Doctors, Nurses, Techs, HHS Secretary, Several High Ups at HealthCare Insurance companies and some Czar that POTUS appoints to oversee it all. They will determine the AVERAGE cost that insurance companies pay for all possible procedures.”
I’m in the health insurance business. This is how it is currently done for the most part.
You have removed financial accountibility from the patient. Bloat and cost increases are the result. Capitalism, not socialism, results in excellence.
Oh, you poor blind mouse.
That's the goal of every plan to provide "health care for all" because until private industry is destroyed in that field the government can't get away with the sort of eugenics and homicide they want to impose while calling those things, "unfortunate necessities" required to be able to pay for "the good of the people".
The only difference in the plans is whether it's bold and destroys private industry in the health field right off the bat or tries to pretend that's not the goal by slowly strangling private health care providers.
That's pretty much the way things were when I was growing up. No one was dying in the streets. My father was a clerk when I was born. I was in a NYC hospital with my mother for a week following a normal delivery. My father paid the bill in cash when we left.
The poor relied on clinics and charity, but ordinary folks required neither.
When I was a kid the doctor was in an office by himself. or sometimes one nurse (or his wife). Now a doctors' office is filled with other doctors and at least as many office clerks. These clerk send data to other clerks in faraway office; and government clerks oversee everything. All these people have to be paid and they provide absolutely NO MEDICAL BENEFIT.
ML/NJ
#2 - no mention of having to be a citizen ?
#3 - no fairness there ? average may be more than I currently pay, plus these things are already fee categorized via location - in the private as well as the CMS sectors.
#4 -
1. new tax on people and business
2. additional new tax on business that is means tested
3. as long as you are going the lock box route via an amendment, might as well include SS & Medicare taxes into their own lock box
bottom line, anything stated as “permanently capped” via a constitutional amendment...
How can the Constitution deny what it expressly allows ?
so, how much and where does it come from, to finance the research that has to be done to even put the plan in writing ?
My basic reaction is (and I have a somewhat similar/dissimilar plan that I don’t have time to detail here/now)
It would force most docs to become the insurer. They would get their nominal medicare reimbursement (which as you imply is el cheapo, and it is) but they would in essence be forced to accept ALL THEIR BUSINESS in this format.
Any product or service that is purchased through a third party is inevitably going to get more expensive over time, because the three-party transaction has no mechanism in place to constraint the prices.
1. When you are insured and you need medical care, you don't care how much it costs because you're "insured."
2. The insurance company doesn't care how well the procedure is done because they don't have to live with the results.
3. The doctor is caught in the middle because he has a patient who wants Lamborghini-level care, but an insurance company that only wants to pay for a Chevrolet.
This here captures the essence of the problem perfectly. We don't have a health care problem in this country. We have a health care payment problem.
If you want anything to get less expensive, the best approach is to make people pay for it directly and incentivize the producers to develop economies of scale in producing it.
A citizen starting a conversation that could lead to solutions. HOW DARE YOU! Thanks. Good tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4VwQXoyodk
Check out this beautifully lyriced and voiced song...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ST9TZBb9v8
Simple. Repeal Obamacare and the 1965 health cat (sponsored by Ted Kennedy.) Let the market fix it.
The cost of healthcare is the issue, not how to pay for it.
Cost could easily be cut drastically - GET DOCTORS OUT OF THE FREAKING DRIVER’S SEAT
Easily 90% of health care services can be performed by Nurse Practitioners or Physician Assistants.
If people want doctors, they can pay what the market will bear.
If they want the Government to pay for it, then create community health clinics with NP’s and PA’s. One remote doctor on call for the small number of cases that warrant it, with IBM’s Watson backstopping the doctor because doctors kill about a quarter million people a year.
Clinics could be set up at Walmart, Walgreen’s, CVS etc. just like they do flu shots now. Retailers would have to compete for the contracts.
If you have no insurance, and you’re not bleeding out, then you GTFO of the ER and go to the clinic.
Piece of cake. This isn’t hard, people. You just have to stop thinking that freaking M.D.’s should be calling the shots.