Posted on 06/13/2019 4:54:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
Seven out of 10 voters rate their health insurance coverage and the medical care they receive as good or excellent. Despite that, only 34% give our nation's health care system positive reviews. Not surprisingly, therefore, health care reform has consistently been a top voter concern election after election.
Broadly speaking, voters have two concerns. Defensively, they want to make sure that Congress doesn't make a bad situation worse. That's why 78% of voters want any reform to specifically provide protection for people with preexisting conditions. Beyond that, however, voters want more control over their own health care decisions. And in practical terms, that means they need more choices. Seventy-four percent would like the option of buying into the health insurance plan offered government employees.
On a broader basis, 65% think health insurance companies should be required to offer a variety of health insurance options. Those options would include more expensive plans with comprehensive coverage and less expensive plans that cover only basic health care needs.
The desire for choice is also highlighted by the strong opposition to banning private insurance companies and requiring everybody to get their medical coverage through the federal government. Eighty-two percent oppose that provision in Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" plan.
This desire for both protection and choice was highlighted in a ScottRasmussen.com survey exploring what voters consider to be junk insurance.
Not surprisingly, 76% believe "health insurance that fails to pay for its promised coverage" is junk. Just about any product or service that fails to deliver as promised ranks pretty low in the world of consumer choice.
Perhaps more interesting are five other forms of health insurance that most voters see as junk:
-- Seventy-two percent believe the term "junk insurance" applies to "health insurance with so much red tape that people have to wait a long time for surgery." Just 14% disagree.
-- Sixty-nine percent believe "health insurance that forces people to pay for coverage of medical procedures they don't need" is junk. Only 18% disagree.
-- Sixty-eight percent believe "junk" is the appropriate description for "health insurance that places a limit on care for items such as cancer treatments." Nineteen percent disagree.
-- Sixty-two percent consider "health insurance that won't let you choose your own doctor" to be junk insurance. Only 23% disagree.
-- A bare majority -- 51% -- think "junk" is the right description for "health insurance that requires young people to subsidize the premiums of older people."
Highlighting a gap between the political world and the rest of the nation, just 41% believe "health insurance with low premiums that covers only major medical expenses and emergencies" is junk. On that point, 38% disagree.
Just 28% think "health insurance that is expensive but covers virtually every medical emergency" should be considered junk. Most (52%) disagree. This makes clear that voters don't have a problem with expensive health insurance; they just don't like the idea of being forced to buy it.
Put it all together and the twin pillars of successful health care reform are pretty clear. First, do no harm. Second, empower Americans to make their own health care choices.
No legislation is complete without tort reform.
Healthcare Reform? Wait.. What? I am confused. Did or did not the Democrats FORCE Obamacare (the Affordable Healthcare Act) on the people with the threat of fines if we did not comply because it was going to fix EVERYTHING wrong with the healthcare system cover every American and others and be the friggin best thing on the planet since sliced bread? Now just a few short years later we just have to have Medicare for ALL because our healthcare system is so screwed up and unfair and not working an blah blah blah...
Cuz you know what government employees have? Choices. Lots and lots of choices.
As a career Navy man, I never had to worry about healthcare and that carried into Medicare with Tricare for Life covering all deductibles when I turned 65. I don’t understand why Medicare for All couldn’t work. For starters, Medicare will pay less than half of what doctors try to charge so that is a good thing. Prescriptions work the same way. My care is subsidized by the government at X dollars. If everyone paid that X dollar cost we should be able to have Medicare for All. Am I missing something? That X amount cannot be more than what most people are paying for their health insurance. The fact that reasonable fees only are paid to doctors and drug companies is what makes Medicare work.
If Medicare is in trouble it is because politicians steal the money set aside and there is widespread fraud in the system.
I recommend health sharing plans. The original idea behind insurance before it got corrupted.
My Husband and I are both on Tricare for life and medicare. I have noticed also that medicare pays less than half than what the doctors charge. My husband has maculah (sp) degeneration in his right eye and has to go to a civilian Retina clinic every six weeks for shots in his eyes
Medicare has been looted by politicians since it's inception. And we let them do it.
Now we expect them to fix it? F**K all of them!
The USA has the best health care in the world, even for people without any health care insurance.
Look at any gang banger that gets shot on any given day in Chicago. The po-po will protect the EMT driver and get his sorry ass on his way to the emergency ward, where a team will begin the best procedures to save his life.
No one will with hold their services until the victim shows that he can pay.
Even after the emergency services, the criminal will be well taken care of until he is released or charged with a crime.
Did the police or EMT people leave him bleed out on the street {which is what bernie sanders and crew want you to believe}?
The politicians want the general public confused between catastrophic events and pre-existing conditions that have an expensive cost to the carrier.
If you are 57 and have cancer, and no insurance, you cannot expect to buy a policy that will give you complete coverage at the same price a healthy 27 year old person pays.
Look at 50% of the tv commercials, and they are either car insurance or home/stuff insurance telling you how they are better and cheaper and can save you tons of money.
Not one of these ads says, "Wait until you wreck your car, or your house burns down before you call us for cheap insurance". Why would health care insurance providers say, "After you have stage four cancer, and want cheap insurance, call us."?
Pretty simple answer, eh?
What you are missing is the X factor. You have no idea what is being subsidized by me, the tax payer {which I don't begrudge you or my son, a retired Navy Captain, for your years of service}.
Medicare is a bad program in that it pays for services at such a low rate, that many refuse to participate, and most seniors use an advantage plan or a supplemental plan.
Remember, medicare was supposed to kick in after retirement and a lifetime of co-payments by employee and employeer {all of which was paid by the employee} and was never intended for the whole population.
It has been corrupted by medicade, which is now a "free for all", and a main reason the health care insurance business is such a mess.
On top of it all, is the canard, that most people have been conditioned to believe that HEALTH CARE INSURANCE IS A RIGHT, which is pure bullshit.
It is a service, which if you pay for, the company has a obligation to honor their contract. Period.
In theory, we are paying for Medicare up front, throughout our working lives. Pre-paying insurance premiums, if you will. None of those pre-payments would exist, if you enabled it for everyone, all at once. There'd be a big gap in up-front funding.
Next, you see cost-savings because Medicare only pays so much for hospitalization and prescriptions. That's a big lever for the government when it comes to cost control.
Eventually, the entities that provide those things are going to receive less money. As yearly budgets are passed, there will be a need to control those budgets (in theory), or the medical costs' lever will be shut down some more, to the point where many doctors and specialists may decide to stop seeing so many patients or offering as many specialized procedures.
The same with pharmaceuticals--do you think they're going to be as aggressive with research and development, knowing that they may not receive as good of a return on their lengthy investment? Do you think you'll see innovative medicines and cutting-edge technology under a Medicare-for-All system?
"Medicare for all" is a window-dressed term for single-payer healthcare, and single-payer is another term for socialized medicine. With any system like that, no matter what you call it, there will be a lengthy list of requirements and mandates that come with it. There's no free lunch.
The worst thing about such a system is that there's no going back from it. People will scream, "oh, but my old system was so much better (and let's face it, better than 80% of people are perfectly content with their health insurance.)...I want my own doctor and I don't want to jump through all these hoops to be examined for an illness!"
And I guarantee you, you'll be the one working and paying taxes, and you'll see people ahead of you in the line at the doctor's office or clinic, and you'll know that they're not paying anything. That's what you're "missing" from the equation. People will pay into such a system at a very progressive rate, and they'll receive unequal service.
plans with comprehensive coverage and less expensive plans that cover only basic health care needs.
Neither of those options are Insurance, Insurance insures against an Unexpected Event. Get rid of 3rd part payers and put people in control, go back to Real Insurance where they pay for UNEXPECTED Events not Regular Medical Care. You go to the doctor for something normal, minor and EXPECTED, YOU PAY.
Regular Health Care is still relatively cheap if you actually Pay for it yourself. A knee replacement can be had for $15k ALL IN NO insurance. Insurance is $1000 per month, $8,000 deductible and they pay 60% after that. DO THE MATH!!!
No legislation is complete without tort reform.
Xxxxxxxxxx
Nothing could be further from the truth. Bad doctors, egregious negligence is a horrible abuse for the patients who suffer it. There absolutely MUST be recourse for such patients.
Lawyers only take almost sure win suits because it is expensive and time consuming.
What solution to bad doctoring would you suggest?
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Seventy-four percent would like the option of buying into the health insurance plan offered government employees.
Cuz you know what government employees have? Choices. Lots and lots of choices.
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And the bigger ‘gotcha’?? Lots and LOTS of taxpayer funding. Goes really well w/ the conflict-of-interest “collective bargaining” contracts.
And, yet again, NOTHING to deal with govt’s illegal, unconstitutional hand in the Free Market (outside their A1S8 authority, violations of 5th/9th/10th/13th A. Rights and Contracts clause).
Just a continuation of govt’s social engineering and (illegal) Socialist+ progression.
Health Care Delivery and Health Insurance issues are not going to be solved by partisan bumper sticker slogans.... anyone who’s around this industry, will honestly tell you that.... However, as long as the majority of the public believe otherwise, politicians will happily keep pitching them, knowing full well they won’t solve a thing.
No legislation is complete without tort reform.
But congress is mostly lawyers, so that's not likely...
Back when Obamacare was being shoved down America’s throat and the Whole Foods President was being savaged for daring to question Obamacare, I ran the numbers based on the government’s own data. For what the governments at the federal and state levels were spending per person on health care, they could have paid for the high deductible plan then being offered by the federal government to their employees for every single American and still have had $200 billion left over. Universal health care with everyone in control of their own medical decisions. Of course, the real goal was control and not health care so that couldn’t have happened.
Americans want:
Infinite choices.
Little to no waiting times.
Highest quality.
Free or very low cost.
Unicorns don’t exist.
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