Posted on 07/12/2014 2:18:06 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
To the editor: When the Supreme Court handed down its Hobby Lobby decision, I was glad — glad because it would be the start of our country realizing how insane it is to link business and healthcare. ("The Hobby Lobby case proves the necessity of single-payer healthcare," July 1)
I know that offering medical care to workers began as a perk, but having started something is no reason to carry on with an insane system that has made our medical care outrageously and unnecessarily expensive.
Medical care must be made affordable to all, without having businesses get in the way. Our current system is outrageous and makes a mockery of our belief that we are a country not founded on religious demands. We should be a country that takes care of its sick and needy whoever they are and whatever they believe.
Shirley Sacks, Beverly Hills
To the editor: The Supreme Court upheld a challenge to part of the Affordable Care Act that applies to a tiny percentage of the population — employed women who cannot afford one of three abortifacients and who are working for small corporations owned by religious people.
Compared to the enormous waivers and extensions granted by the administration, this is nothing. But for Michael Hiltzik, it shows the system has been so shattered that it is time to dump it and adopt a single-payer scheme similar to Canada's, Britain's and France's.
But none of those countries has a true single-payer system, as they all have insurance and private doctors for those who want more than the minimum that the government doles out. They call it "going private," an option of full treatment limited to the rich.
David Goodwin, Los Angeles
To the editor: I agree with Hiltzik that a single-payer system would eliminate....
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
So end the mandate.
Unfortunately for the leftists, the Obamacare fiasco has destroyed any possibility that the people would be willing to give the government even more power and control over their health care. Thank God.
We need to keep reminding the low-information voters of that little fact.
The healthcare system is easily fixable in this country. Just declare yourself an illegal or a terrorist, you will have the best healthcare possible, and never EVER join the military as healthcare for military vets is banned.
“Single payer” means taxpayers pay for it
Which is the worst thing possible
I saw a pretty dreadful movie today called “Tammy”.
In it the character complains about gas for $4.00 a gallon and says,sarcastically,”Thamks,Obamacare”.
That surprised me.
.
Voter response: "Okay. Sounds great!"
...and affirmative-action feral government bureaucrats run it.
I don’t think I’d bet on that. Never underestimate the utter stupidity of some people.
Authored no doubt by an Obama/Marxist minion.
The U.S. has had the best healthcare in the world because it was run by the free market until government began meddling in the 70's.
What is truly insane is the intentional myopia and tunnel vision these socialist sympathizers have. They ignore current facts, historical record, and theoretical truth.
Unbelievable.
Is it state or national? When I was in Delaware, I had to deal with a period of being eligible for state assistance on healthcare. My issue with the state option was how rediculously hard it was to push to receive it. I ultimately left Delaware and started my own family. Glad to be done with the fiasco.
yes single-payer means your taxes will up BIG TIME to pay for it
Remember in the 1980s car insurance was absolutely insane? I remember paying $5,000 a year for two accidents I had which was an insane amount of money back then.
Then what happened? Suddenly all these car insurance companies started popping up, advertising all over the place, stiff competition whereas today you pay basically nothing, they even ask you to name your own price.
So what happened? It seems to me somebody, maybe Reagan or Bush Sr. got government out of car insurance or they busted a monopoly, something happened in the late 80s early 90s, it could have even been Clinton, but either way WHY don’t they do that with HEALTH INSURANCE?? You ever see health insurance commercials? At least on the level or car insurance commercials? I don’t see no health insurance ads with geckos
OK, decouple business and health-care, but also decouple government. Everybody on the free market. Government's proper role in insurance would not be to mandate what must be covered but to make sure they cover what they say they'll cover.
I don’t see how we can ever go back. What would the insurance companies do if Obamacare was ruled illegal tomorrow?
I haven’t seen the movie but permit me to interpret.
This happens early in the movie.
The lead character who utters this, Tammy, is still establishing herself as a nimrod.
She later evolves as a character and changes into a more enlightened person, allowing the viewer to construct an opinion that earlier traits demonstrated by our main character were ignorant and less enlightened.
Financial deregulation allowed insurance companies to operate across states, although they still needed an insurance charter within each state.
The same happened with banking and brokerage. Fees dropped dramatically.
Because abortion paid for through taxes is so much less damning to the christian soul than paying for it as a business owner! /sarc
They would demand that the government step in to prevent them from going bankrupt.
This is happening within Obamacare today, BTW: google “Obamacare Risk Corridors”
What has made “medical care outrageously and unnecessarily expensive” is NOT the fact it has been provided for lo these many years as an employer benefit and perk of the job. It has been because of unnecessary costs caused by frivolous litigation, that are passed on to the consumer of these services, based on the altogether unwarranted size of awards made by ignorant juries manipulated by unscrupulous legal representatives for the defendant. Even the fear of being sued has caused many inordinately large out-of-court settlements, and these all get passed down to the consumer in some manner, either in higher costs, or denial of some effective treatments altogether.
True, some cutting-edge medical technological breakthroughs are very expensive and with uncertain results when first introduced, but once the practice has adopted the most effective way of applying the new technology, the costs drop dramatically.
“Single-payer” addresses none of these advantages or concerns. the upshot is an almost total shutdown of ANY innovation, and ever-lengthening wait times to get even less effectual treatment, from practitioners who have less empathy for individual patients that ever before. As if anybody WANTED to practice medicine that way.
Now, employer-paid health coverage is less than perfect, to be sure. The most ideal circumstance would be for everybody to be covered for as much risk as they, personally, are willing to take, even including no coverage at all. The intermediate range, where some coverage is provided, is best done by allowing a savings account, which is made up of income NOT ever subject to taxation, as a Medical Savings Account, to be used for the sole purpose of purchasing routine medial services (this would, of course, include all forms of contraception), and for grave or unusual situations, a Major Medical that would kick in after the entire Medical Savings Account had been spent down. As a supplement, Long Term Care coverage would be a further option for the future. When acquired in the early decades of life, this option is quite reasonable in cost. This, too, is making a bet you won’t be burdened with escalating health care costs in old age, coping with perhaps end-of-life issues.
All these plans are on an INDIVIDUAL basis, or as part of a VOLUNTARY association with a group plan. It is the compulsory nature of “single-payer” that I most object to, with its aspect of rationing, or even downright denial, of medical services. And no choice as to whether it were even possible to go elsewhere.
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