Posted on 05/10/2009 10:05:27 PM PDT by george76
President Barack Obama's plan to provide medical insurance for all Americans took a big step toward becoming reality Sunday after leaders of the health care industry offered $2 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years to help pay for the program.
Hospitals, insurance companies, drug makers and doctors planned to tell Obama today they'll voluntarily slow their rate increases in coming years in a move that government economists say would create breathing room to help provide health insurance to an estimated 50 million Americans who now go without it.
Six major groups plan to deliver a letter to Obama and pledge to cut the growth rate for health care by 1.5 percentage points each year, senior administration officials said Sunday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to sketch the offer before full details are revealed at a White House event scheduled for today.
(Excerpt) Read more at nashuatelegraph.com ...
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Luntz :
—“It could lead to the government setting standards of care, instead of doctors who really know what’s best.”
Yeah. The dirty little secret is, we taxpayers will be paying illegals healthcare when they open up the floodgates. Not to mention..the union workers healthcare.
I smell fear. the industry is terrified that if it doesn’t bend over now, it will be shanked later. Obama is going to get his healthscare nightmare passed this year 4 sure.
Are you kidding? Illegal aliens, terrorists, and registered Democrat voters are at the front of the line.
Us 'bitter-clingers' are left to fend for ourselves, which, when you think about it, is better than ObamaNo-Care.
I, too am skeptical. It sounds like these insurers love losing money.
The problem is that The First Thug knows that it sucks. In fact, he's counting on it sucking. The system will be subtly jury-rigged so that all productive members of society will always be at the back of the line, fighting over the meager scraps that are rationed out.
Meanwhile, freeloaders, terrorists, illegal aliens, registered Democrats will be cared for in 100% comfort. All on your dime.
Better not ever get sick, if you want to live thru this demonic presidency. Otherwise, The First Thug is privately hoping you all die soon to make room for more of his faithful & completely stupid subjects.
I was at a major government work site the other week. I’m a private contractor and busting my butt to get my work done so I don’t lose money, meet the schedule, etc.
It was UNBELIEVABLE to see the amount of guys (and some women) standing around, wandering to and from wherever, talking, etc. Worst of all coming up to me “Hey, what are you doing, etc.”
Coming to a government healthcare center near you. “Emergency? Well, it is after 4 pm, but there is another PHCC (Primary Healthcare Center) that we can refer you to if you fill out a Form E-10967. Once we establish your NEQ (Need Emergency Quotient) we can process you through .....” Well, you get the idea.
thanks, bfl
I cannot get health insurance either, and all that I have wrong is simple high blood pressure, completely corrected with medication, but not one company in Oregon will insure me.
I have the option of joing Oregon’s high-risk pool for people with AIDS and cancer, but the cost is astronomical, into the thousands per month, and I can’t afford that.
Something has gone way wrong with our health care industry...
Ed
First, it’s just “pledges to limit the increases”. This is no better than Obama’s phony “create OR SAVE 4 million jobs”, which literally means we could lose 100 million+ jobs and still meet his standard.
How do we really know how much the costs would have increased to know they cut it 1.5%.
But really, it’s a pretty easy promise. Most of our cost increases are not increases in the cost of providing existing care. It’s the new cost of new innovations, new drugs, and new procedures using new equipment.
With Obama running our health care, it’s a certain bet we won’t have new drugs, new procedures, new equipment, or new innovations. So why would there be increasing costs of care — there won’t be new things to spend money on. The drugs we have now won’t cost any more than they do now, and there won’t be new drugs because there will be no incentive.
Anyway, what private business in their right mind would dare to question anything Obama says at this point — he is a dictator and could simply declare them bad and take them over, like he’s doing with banks and with the auto industry and the energy industry.
If you have any elective-type surgery you have been waitung until “it got bad enough”, and you have insurance now, you should try your best to get it done, because my guess is under Obama’s plan you won’t get your surgery until you are dead, and then the only surgery you will get is when they extract all your hard-earned money from your pockets before your heirs get a hold of it.
It is clear the problem is too much regulation. If what you are saying is true, certainly you, as a smart person, would insure yourself and others like you for a fee that made you a profit and covered the expected costs.
So why wouldn’t a real insurance company do that? Because of regulations. They can’t take the risk that they will be forced to cover people who would clearly not as a group pay for their costs. To avoid this, they have to leave out people who WOULD as a group be profitable.
If there was a completely free market, every class of health risks would be able to find insurance somewhere at costs comparable to the risks of coverage.
Of course, part of the problem is that health “insurance” too often covers routine things that aren’t really “insurance” items. Car insurance doesn’t cover normal repairs for wear and tear, why would health insurance cover that — get an extended warranty if you want to cover normal expected costs.
Having the option of government coverage just makes it more likely insurnace companies won’t get involved — they can’t compete with the government.
Last problem: We are getting to knowledgable. Disease isn’t perfectly predictable, but it’s reasonably predictable. The more we learn, the more likely we are to be able to truly categorize people into risk groups — and doing so WILL make insurance too costly for those in the worst risk groups, because frankly they are a sure bet to cost more than they could ever pay.
The free market may be a harsh agent in that world. For example, when a couple covered by insurance has a child, that child almost always gets insured, and can continue insurance. What if that child is born deformed or with a debilitating disease? It will cost the company hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. Since the couple won’t pay that much in insurance, the cost will be borne by all the other people paying for insurance with that company.
Now, if another company somehow figures out how to avoid that type of expense, their customers will pay less for their insurance. And in fact, that company will draw people who can get insurance from them, leaving the other company only with more risky people who cost more, driving up their costs further.
Does society require that we have some sort of catastrophic coverage paid for by society as a whole to cover these cases? Would that be more fair than randomly burdening parts of society who happen to choose the “wrong” insurance company?
We haven’t begun to have the debate on this, and Obama wants to implement a new world order.
It IS regulations in my case.
Oregon has a rule that mandates that companies cover all illnesses, pre-existing conditions clauses are illegal, therefore they cherry pick only those people in absolute perfect health and refuse to sign up anyone else.
My girlfriend is also self-employed and she’s in perfect health, has never been sick (her grandparents came from Sicily and her people all live well into their 80’s and 90’s, with two of her aunts having lived until 104!) and she has really good coverage at $180/month. I’d love to pay that...but they won’t take me as a client for any price.
Ed
The fix is in. Hussein will get socialized medicine. Welcome to that wonderful haven of government health care known as England. Or Cuba.
Either way, we’re screwed.
I have worked for myself for five years and my wife, my son and I can’t get health care like my neighbors who work for companies and government, plus they can turn me down for high blood pressure. This system sucks and is a deterrent to people starting new companies or working for themselves.
I have sympathy for you but we all have choices in life. You have many more freedoms than the rest of us. The one thing that I really find disturbing in your post is the fact that the insurance company refuses to insure you. That is what is wrong. You don’t have to change the whole system just demand that insurance companies take people who need insurance. It is seriously as simple as that.
It's not a “health care industry” problem ... it is an insurance industry problem. Big difference.
Health Insurance reform would be the answer ... like removing gov’t reg (state and Fed) for forcing Insurance carriers to cover every possible “disease” you can think of. And allow companies to allow for no-frills to deluxe coverage plans.
And the biggest reform of all ... Tort Reform so the blood sucking lawyers can't win millions for phony malpractice law suits.
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