Posted on 01/13/2017 12:00:44 PM PST by JeepersFreepers
The 2010 health law, also known as Obamacare, forced insurers to sell coverage to anyone, at the same price, regardless of their risk of incurring big claims. That provision was popular. Not so were rules requiring nearly everyone to have insurance, and higher premiums for healthy people to subsidize the costs of the sick.
If policyholders don’t pick up the tab, who will? Letting insurers refuse to sell to individuals with what the industry calls a “pre-existing condition”—in essence, forcing some of the sick to pay for themselves—is something both parties appear to have ruled out. Insurers could charge those patients more or taxpayers could pick up the extra costs, two ideas that are politically fraught.
Most U.S. health-care spending is for a small number of very expensive patients:
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Handwringing liberal, socialist horse feathers. What a crock. When you distill Obamacare down to its root purpose, it is the Marxist redistribution of wealth FOR DEMOCRAT POWER AND CONTROL over society. Social engineering. Controlling 20% of the nations’ industry.
Pound sand liberal Democrats...
After his insurance was given to him by the huckster he voted for his share of the employer subsidized premium went up to $404 within two years and his deductible rose to $8,500. For all practical purposes, he now has no insurance, since with two young boys always catching schoolborne diseases and breaking or pulling things playing the games boys play, he has to pay out of pocket for every visit, every pill, every shot and every x-ray he needs.
By 2012 he no longer loved the huckster and his dream of buying a home was gone while he paid an ever rising rent and covered every medical expense hi family encountered.
Doctors and Nurses can offer their services for free in on-site free clinics (like they do in soap operas).
Plenty of ways to take care of those in need.
And if we don't get back to that, the system will crash ... hard ... regardless of who is sitting in the White House.
Twenty Trillion Dollars of national fiscal operating debt.
More than Two Hundred Trillion Dollars of national unfunded liabilities.
We're headed for a brick wall ...
I thought this was an excellent article which summarizes the issues well. The sick don’t want to pay for their own medical care (or they can’t), and the well don’t want to pay for medical care for the sick.
Therefore, few will be happy with any plan or program.
" It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it." Thomas Sowell
You are exactly right. The key to all this is NOT insurance. Insurance doesn’t = medical care. The only thing we need insurance for is catastrophic illness. Why pay high premiums so doctors and insurance companies can fight about the cost of the office visit. Price transparency would cure a lot of the ills of medical costs. If I know how much one doctor is charging for a visit or test than I can shop around. Competition will naturally drive down price. This is not happening because politicians are afraid of the AMA and the Insurance lobby. The people need to take their healthcare system back. Pay as you go, insurance for major medical expenses only!
Churches are getting out of the health care business.
The Catholic Church is dumping hospitals as fast as they can go. A combination of declining numbers of nuns to provide free labor, and constant harassment from Liberals in government about providing abortions and sterilizations.
“Almost half of health care spending is consumed by 5% of patients. “
My dad was comatose after a heart attack. While still alert, he demanded that the doctors not use extreme care. He had all the paperwork in place and a copy of it in his records. Only my sister could make decisions. He wanted to go without having his chest caved in. It was a constant fight with the hospital and the doctor in charge not to use extreme measures. As each family member arrived they again made a play for bypass surgery, despite them not having the POA. All we can figure is that his insurance was willing to pay so they wanted to do the work. We finally had an 18 hour a day vigil to prevent the hospital from performing procedures.
Most likely, this is not a problem of the insurance industry. It is some B school graduate who is optimizing he hospital’s income.
I know somebody on Medicaid. (Is that the free one for indigents?) He has had numerous MRI’s and cat scans. In my whole life (62) I have had one MRI (for blinding headaches.) When I had a shoulder problem the doc just manipulated it and then hit the right spot with a shot. Not the guy I know. Same problem, cured with a shot, but two MRI’s.
before gov’t meddling in health care - 5% of gdp and best quality on earth
after 50 years of gov’t meddling - 18% of GDP and worst quality in first world
the solution isn’t more gov’t meddling
” ... you will never get enough public support to allow insurance companies to go back to denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.”
Put people with serious pre-existing conditions into a high-risk pool like we do with drivers who have “pre-existing” conditions such as excessive traffic tickets and motor vehicle accidents. Any subsidies deemed necessary for the high premiums for such coverage can be paid indirectly by healthy insureds (the auto insurance model) or directly by taxpayers (the Obamacare model). Just leave the rest of us able to buy the insurance coverage we think is appropriate, including a low-premium/high-deductible catastrophic-care option.
I don't think that the shocking disparities in consumption of health care by tiny slices of the population surprises anyone. What surprises me is that this information, or information where the subsides under ACA go, has not been forthcoming. When the GOP replaces this miss, they need to directly address data gathering, reporting and disclosure. One of the most cynical aspects of Obamacare has been the shell game nature of it - the opaque complexity that prevents taxpayers and citizens from assessing how well it works and how fair it is, by whatever criteria you wish to apply.
The way to solve this problem is straightforward.
To start with, neither the government nor insurers should be permitted to pay for routine and ordinary medical screening or care. By eliminating both from the system, the price of medical care drops around 50%. Yes, their overhead is almost half the cost of medical care.
For moderate health care, such as short term hospitalizations and lesser surgeries, insurers should be allowed in for those who wish to buy insurance; and government gives block grants to the states, who will use it to prioritize medical care for those who cannot afford insurance.
For extreme, catastrophic, extended stay care, it should be a separate block grant to the states. In declared emergencies, additional monies for this can be provided to the states involved.
The purpose of turning it over to the states is intended to create a price list of medical procedures. At the top of the list are things like cleft palate surgery, which is inexpensive, generally works, and substantially improves the quality of life. At the bottom of the list are things like multiple organ transplant surgery for premature infants, that is egregiously expensive and almost never works. The states prioritize procedures based on a finite amount of money. No money, no procedure, starting from the bottom of the list.
Wait a minute. What has the Medicaid program been paying for these last 70 years?
The first order of business is to recognize the difference between insurance and welfare.
Responsible people pay for real insurance and they have to take care of no one who is not paying.
Irresponsible people roll into the welfare medical system and the taxpayers foot their bill.
Comingling the two is a cynical lie meant to fail from the get-go.
From my experience ( anecdotal) the people who are needy are also the people you want to avoid as a health care provider. They are poor for a reason, due to drugs and other poor life choices. They tend to be high maintanence and demanding patients. It was rare to see a truly deserving poor patient. I remember those patients.
The only way to drop the price of health care is to stop all the regulations. Hospitals are so top heavy because they have to hire people to comply with the ever expanding regulations.
I recently had to sit through a mandatory inservice on fat shaming. Yup, doctors and nurses can no longer tell patients they need to lose weight. It might make the patient upset, they write poor performance evaluations on the hospital, and the hospital gets less reimbursement. That is also why you are seeing health care costs explode. No one wants to say NO to a patient- be it pain pills, antibiotics or an MRI.
For-profit insurance companies love programs like Medicare.
They can shove off their least-profitable customers, the ones most likely to get sick, onto the public treasury. While keeping hold of the more profitable ones.
Privatize profits and socialize losses.
They can’t have it both ways either.
Another item that has increased costs is that we are mingling health care ( surgeries, medication etc.) with social care ( nursing homes). Those items should be separate, because a lot of health care costs is nursing home and caregiver costs. Hospitals should treat and street. if the government is worried about the social issues, then that should come out of a different kitty.
The bipartisan problem is that the health care monopolies make huge political contributions and no one dares try to force them back into operating under transparent market pricing.
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