Interesting looks at the problem. Consider this an open thread.
Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance…
Or yet another take on the same topic.
The short videos do not necessarily reflect the options of the management.
Feel free to use this thread as an open thread.
I am sick of health care, pun intended. The American people are not in the mood for drastic changes right now. The collapse of our financial system was a shock to the system. Deficits we can live with. But a complete overhaul of health care at a time when economic anxiety is still at a peak is just not going to be possible. Regulate the insurance brokers, limit the middleman’s cut, and leave it at that.
And of the millions with no insurance?
Those without coverage are not some abstract people…I know 5-6 people personally who right this minute have no insurance.
I’ve heard a lot of stories over the last couple months about people who go to the doctor and pay without even involving the insurance companies….Doctor to patient, no middleman. Hmmmm.
That, Slow, is great for people who have the cash!
And that’s great if you are talking about a $250 bill. However, a hospital stay can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
How about those people who don’t have a job at the moment and get sick.
Its easy to be Billy-bad ass the cash payer until its you.
LBH – when is a good time?? Some time during the past 16 years must have been a good time, but we did nothing.
Just like we are waiting to fix Social Security.
Doing nothing, or waiting is not an option.
I’m just sayin’ that I see the need for a middleman when it’s catastrophic coverage, but if people could work with doctors again, and cut out middlemen, the prices would probably come down. By including the middleman in every little office visit that takes 5 minutes, we allow them to charge 500.00 for it.
And I think that is a good point, Pat.
Slow, I understand now. But how do you get around some of it. How do you get the coverage to pay for it and then leave the middle man out?
I have no answers, mind you. If you go to vpap.org, you will see the thousands upon thousands of dollars the health care industry is giving the candidates. Now that is a place to start. No political donations from the health care industry.
Pat, I would say a good time would come when we have a booming economy and budget surplusses and two less wars.
M-H, I realize that real human beings will, are, and have been dying for lack of care. That is a tragedy, just as many things are tradegies. I don’t let it get to me if I can help it because it would destract me from my responsibilities. I do care about things like this, but when making policy decisions you have to look at the big picture. The least fortunate have never been well cared for in America, at least not since the Colonies began.
There….THAT’s the unbelievable BS that people are tired of. Y’all blew your load on the crisis crap with the porkulus package. It’s not a crisis yesterday, it’s not a crisis today, and it won’t be a crisis tomorrow. No matter how much you try to say “we have to do this God-awful thing we put together ’cause if we do nothing, we’ll all die”, people know that we could easily push through a series of steps that would fix this problem correctly, do it in a timely fashion, and we’d all be better off for it. But as long as people keep insisting that we must sign over all our freedoms and liberties to the federal government because if we don’t do it right this second, we’ll all die in fiery infernos will only get you ground to a halt.
I think 47 million people without health coverage is a pretty big picture. Beyond the human issue, look at what that is doing to the economy. Who pays when those 47 million get sick? Those of us with insurance pay and it is getting more and more expensive.
There are huge write offs every year from hospitals. I think that Potomac and Prince William recently wrote off $50 million dollars. Now who pays for that?
Clinton is not still in office. (booming economy, surplusses and 2 less wars). He tried to do it. You saw the opposition he faced. And you know who the opposition is. There is no right time in the minds of those people who oppose anything other than the status quo.
But health care isn’t enron and I don’t see the connection. You have tossed out something without a way to get from point A to point B.
By the definition of insurance, you have a middle man. There is a way to get around it. Don’t have health coverage. Then if you get really sick and it costs a fortune, walk on your bill. That has worked for all sorts of people.
Let’s start with banning ALL advertising for prescription drugs. The evening news is just rife with ads for ED and just about every GI dyfunction imaginable, depression, anxiety (even “social” anxiety), “restless leg syndrome”–you name it, it all starts looking like a parade of snake oil. Patients put pressure on doctors to give them a drug they saw on TV, doctors are unduly influenced to prescribe an expensive drug that may not even be the best choice for the patient. Why on earth do we need TV advertising for blood thinners like Plavix, drugs that are a critical necessity for someone during a stroke? Is someone seriously going to ask their doctor mid-stroke whether they are getting Plavix? And is it at all possible that a healthy male might not even need Cialis, maybe just some counseling? So much easier to run to the doctor and get that drug because the two people sitting in side-by-side bathtubs on TV look like THEY’RE going to get it on any second.
There, I feel better now, thank you. Just a little healthcare-professional venting.
BTW, prescription drugs is a $4.3 BILLION advertising sector.
And this is why:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2009-08-09-adtrack-prescription-drug-ads_N.htm
Does anyone remember the drug Phen-phen, the miracle diet pill of the ’90s? Just ask the people (or their surviving family members, in many cases) who suffered chronic pulmonary hypertension if the drug was all it was cracked up to be in the ads. Nothing like finally losing the weight and killing yourself in the process, is there?
I’m sorry it’s not clear how entities are able to inject themselves into the middle of something that has nothing to do with producer->consumer and increase the price all around by doing nothing except running off with money. I’ve said that insurance is understandable for big items, but not in every producer/consumer transaction.
And then there is the R&D costs that Americans bear 100 percent, and then the grossly inflated drug prices on reimportation of those same drugs.
I dare this President to take on the pharmaceutical companies, and I dare Congress to back him up. What are the odds?
Skipping down to the bottom to respond to Emma’s first post. It has only been 20 years or so that rx advertising has been allowed, I think. I agree with Emma. While we are at it, how about making it flat out illegal to bribe doctors with all the reward goodies from the phamacuetical companies? I don’t even want a pen or tablet given away. No free pizza for the office staff either.
There’s another place to start. Then don’t allow anthem to make political contributions….we’ve saved a lot already.
Did we leave off how many of the drug companies are manufacturing in other countries?
Emma, the president would before congress, I suspect.
I have not heard anyone discuss health savings accounts. If I am not mistaken, there is an option to use tax deductable health savings accounts for people enrolled in high deductable health plans. The money can be rolled over and accumulated year by year. If the money is spent on qualified health care, then there are no federal taxes associated with it. And the individual owns the account and can take it with him if he leaves the company.
If you put in $2K-$4K per year, then you will be in pretty good shape for all but catastrophic medical expenses. If you lose your job, then you still have the money to cover you during the period of unemployment.
This seems like a great compromise that keeps the government and insurance companies out of an individual’s health care for all but the most expensive events. I have not heard what the fate of these accounts would be with the new health care reform initiatives.
What if you don’ t have a job or don’t make that much to sock away that much money? How about if you want to contibute to your 401k plan. Pretty soon you run out of bucks.
There used to be voluntary medical savings account but if you didn’t use it, I think you might have lost it. I just don’t remember. That was to supplement your insurance plan for things that weren’t covered.
That seems very radical to me, Kelly, if it is replacing health care.
Kelly – the way my HSA account works, is that if I do not use it all in a given year, I loose it – kinda sucks to have to try and guess how much I will spend on healthcare this coming year.
Slow – my point exactly, why don’t we make some small changes to SS NOW, instead of waiting?? The last time it was tweaked was under Reagan, and he upped the retirement ages to help with the fund.
LBH – if we did not have a good time in the last 16 years, why would you expect a good time in the next 10, when we have a near depression and a near collapse of our financial system while Washington just looked on and let it happen (everyone knew the liar loans would catch up to us).