Posted on 10/13/2004 2:48:04 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Government has messed health care up royally and now the government must fix it?!
Granted things are wrong with the best medical care system in the world BUT there are always two sides to the story.
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Osteopathic Medical Center of Texas announced that it was shutting down after 58 years, primarily because it couldn't win decent-paying contracts from health insurers.
Osteopathic - massage therapy schools, chiropractic colleges, acupuncture schools, or any school of the natural healing arts***
Then Albertsons, a leading grocer, said it will shift thousands of full-time employees to part-time status, because, among other reasons, health insurance has become too expensive.
ALBERTSON'S March 15, 2002 - Struggling Albertson's to exit market***…Albertson's, which has 43 stores in the Houston area, entered the local market in May 1996. Soon after establishing a presence in the Bayou City, the company was denied a $45 million, 10-year abatement on county taxes for its distribution center in the west part of Harris County.
Albertson's spokeswoman Rhonda Clements says the company saw a huge potential for growth when it first researched the area, but says Houston hasn't lived up to growth expectations or the investments the company has made here.
"Albertson's will only operate in areas where we have significant market share and potential for significant growth," Clements says. "We are currently fifth in the Houston market, vs. Dallas where we are first and have a lot of growth opportunities."
The company announced 10 immediate closures on March 13 and says the remaining 33 stores will be closed as the company determines the best way to divest the real estate. Albertson's owns some of its stores outright and leases others.
Clements says more than 800 Houston-area employees will be affected by the immediate store closures. Those workers will be given a chance to transfer to the stores that are remaining open for the short-term. …..***
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Krogers bought up most of Albertson's stores.
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It looks to me like the FREE MARKET has decided.
Part of the problem with health insurance is lawyers like John Edwards and the frivolous lawsuits he brought up. If you think health insurance costs to benefits are bad look at dental insurance. My premiums for the year are more than what the benefits are. The only plus is two free cleanings a year.
The free market is also deciding in health care. Employers got into providing health care benefits (it is not insurance) when they needed to attract employees. They used the benefits as a recruiting tool in competition with other industries. Old timers still talk about their "hospitalization" plans. When this began, the benefits were much cheaper than they are now. The combination of government health benefit programs such as Medicare and the easy availability of employer plans allowed people to "consume" as much care as they wanted to. It became a great fringe benefit. As time passed, people began to think of it more as an entitlement. Now employers can't afford the same level of benefits and can actually hire people without having to offer them at all in some instances. While people view them as entitlements, business can view them as less than indispensible in recruitment. The market is deciding how much private business will have to do to recruit and retain employees. God help us if we treat health care as an entitlement or a constitutional right and put the government totally in charge. Medicare and Medicaid do not work the way they function now. More of the same is going to be disastrous.
So you can smile like Edwards!
Who is our? I have health care and its costs are going up big time. Do I blame the president? I blame all the politicians and lawyers who have turned the health care system into a political/financial game in which they are using us as the pawns.
The only way I see a compromise, as sickening as it is, is for the government to take on the role of a not for profit insurer in which everyone has the option to escape (and more importantly not pay for) the government plan. Any government plan simply cannot be paid for with general revenues (tax dollars) but instead, with regular premiums that are deducted from the paychecks of those that still want to participate.
It's a disaster.
The "cost" billed to insurance companies is jaw-dropping. But the "agreed upon amt" is much, much lower.
If your insurance allows it, medical providers practice defensive medicine and order every test in the book and then some. While those HMOs that don't cover much, have your doctor practicing a conservative approach to keep costs down for the insurer (a peek at universal/Canadian health care).
Neither approach is good and each one has cost us dearly.
I'd love to leave my job for a better paying position, but with the health care benefits offered by my present employer, it just wouldn't be a rational decision. Our company self-funds our medical, and I don't pay a dime except for a low copay. Wonder how long this will last???
Politicans love to have control because they can hold-up companies for political donations or constituent buying schemes, just by threatening legislation that will hurt their bottom line.
If we can, at least, own our medical dollars and spend them as we want, then we can begin a reversal of this mess.
Bump #9 to you!
"Osteopathic - massage therapy schools, chiropractic colleges, acupuncture schools, or any school of the natural healing arts*** "
If you're implying that osteopathic medical school and osteopathic healthcare facilities are not "real" then you're in for a big surprise. Long gone are the days of spinal manipulation. Osteopathic physicians undergo the same duration of training as those physician that practice allopathy. Most osteopathic physicians do residencies along side of allopathic physicians.
That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question in my mind. Will those companies that drop health care pass that premium on to the worker to allow him to buy his health care or will they keep it and force the workers to pay for health care out of what they are taking home now?
You think premiums for dental insurance are so high partly as a result of frivoulous lawsuits and lawyers like John Edwards?
With your two free cleanings, don't you also get some x-rays?
I paid an average of 355.00 per month for health costs every month for years - from about age 33 to 50, for my husband and myself. A couple of doctors' visits and monthly meds for hypertension, which we both have. We went without insurance, which at 80% would have cost the two of us about $630.00 per month (hypertension brought the cost up). This $630.00 would have provided me the chance to get a doctor I wanted - about the equivalent of PPO coverage.
In 2003, I had an injury that resulted in getting an MRI - it was from a car accident, so Florida PIP was paying the bills for all care related to it. They did the MRI and found a mass in my right lung which led to recs for CT scans, bone scans and a PET Scan. I'm at about $12,000 + for this year alone. Now, I cannot get health insurance except by getting hired by a large company that provides group care - no company that I have found will insure myself and husband with this condition. Doing this -- getting such a job - will require a 90 day waiting period to get coverage for pre-exisiting.
Most likely, it will be suggested that I have surgery to remove the mass then chemo. I do not have that money, even with the providers' "charity" deductions.
The MRI was ordered, imho, due to the practice of "defensive medicine" -- the doctors were aware that I work in the legal field and wanted to cover their behinds just in case my continued complaints of pain in my back were something other than muscle strain/sprains. So, "defensive medicine" isn't always a bad thing.
I think it's great to continue to argue about whose fault it is for rising health care costs, particularly the cost of insurance. But this country has been having this discussion for what - 30, 35 years now? And no one is getting anywhere except worse. I see some people -- those with government benefits like Medicaid -- going to the ER for everything because the ERs are mostly required to pay/provide free care to these folk. We earn way too much to qualify here.
I see no reason that every US citizen should not be afforded the opportunity to buy insurance exactly like what we pay for our Congresspersons. That's an Edwards/Kerry alleged policy.
I would love to see how any Bush policy could help me. And I am one of what - 40 million? Can you think of any other "entitlement" that is as important as providing citizens with basic health care? Do you think the fact that many physicians refuse to provide treatment to people with, for example Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO coverage (cost of $460.00 per month for spouse and me)because their reimbursement from BC/BS is so low has anything to do with their refusal to provide care for these people? I have that HMO coverage now - and I had a real difficult time finding a PCP who accepted it.
What percentage of the cost of health care premiums comes down with Bush's tort reform -- where, what state has proved it works?
I think it's way past time to move the discussion beyond who is at fault for the problem. Bush et. al. are stuck in "tort reform" mode. They and the Republicans need to get over it.
If there's one thing that I've noticed here is that some conservatives - in fact many - just don't trust markets.
"God help us if we treat health care as an entitlement or a constitutional right and put the government totally in charge. Medicare and Medicaid do not work the way they function now. More of the same is going to be disastrous."
I agree with you that Medicare and Medicaid don't work as they function now, at least to some extent. OTOH, they do at least provide some coverage - Medicare more than Medicaid.
What's your solution?
If health care should not be treated as an "entitlement," what should it be treated as? Do you think there are any "entititlements" today? If so, would you give me an example? National security? I think it probably is something we are "entitled to." But what's the point of being somewhat assured of being able to stay alive if you can't get health care to keep you alive?
I really am curious as to what "things" you or anyone else considers legit "entitlements."
Free market.
Now, maybe I'm missing something that you've written in your post, but you know that someone - someone other than yourself - is going to be contributing to the cost of your treatment. You write that you left the coverage of your plan after spending 17 years on it and making all of those premiums. You left you plan that offered the catastrophic benefit that you now need and you wounder why no one will cover you now that you are such a high risk.
Forgive me for asking but why didn't you move to a high deductible plan with the same insurer while you had the chance?
Don't expect to get what our Congress persons get. The PLAN would most likely be modified. Most people in the Senate are millionaires and I'm sure Sen. Kerry seeks the best care he can pay for.
I would love to see how any Bush policy could help me. And I am one of what - 40 million?
Anyone who has lost health insurance, EVEN WHEN THEY GET BACK ON A PLAN, are still counted in that number.
Young adults who have don't want to buy insurance because they have better ways to spend their money, are counted in that number.
People who can apply for free medical care but don't bother to sign up, are counted in that number.
If so much money were not being sucked out of the health care system by frivolous lawsuits and practice of defensive medicine, the dollars we now spend would go considerably farther. If a doctor is paying $250,000 a year in malpractice insurance and is seeing maybe 50-75 patients a day, with up to 10,000 office calls in a year, that amounts to an extra $25 for each office call. This is BESIDES running all the other costs of an office. And doesn't even include hospital rounds or time in an operating theater.
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