It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Well, I have everything I wanted to say down in one place. We will get socialized medicine.
Lindsey Graham, Senate douche-wad is on record that the Senate will never pass any laws that would allow insurance companies to go across state borders, so we can't look at the most logical and reasonable solutions towards reducing healthcare costs.
originally posted by: DBCowboy
I've mentioned bits and pieces of what I think in many threads. I thought I would collect my thoughts and put them in a single place. As an opinion piece, everyone is welcome to disagree or agree, but like so many polarizing issues, I doubt that any minds would get changed, so keep that in mind if I don't engage in the usual back and forth.
Seven years ago, the Obama administration introduced the Affordable Care Act to the nation. Through very successful campaigns, people began to feel as if it is government's responsibility to provide healthcare.
Socialized medicine. Single payer.
As someone pointed out to me recently, like Medicaid, Medicare.
We now fast forward to today and see the dilemma that the House republicans are in.
They cannot simply repeal Obamacare and be done with it.
That Rubicon has passed.
Now House republicans have to develop a system that does the same thing as Obamacare, only cheaper.
So they are tasked with creating a socialized healthcare program that will cost less, abide by the Constitution, and appease everyone.
Lindsey Graham, Senate douche-wad is on record that the Senate will never pass any laws that would allow insurance companies to go across state borders, so we can't look at the most logical and reasonable solutions towards reducing healthcare costs.
Tort reform is also as likely as congressmen voting in term limits and a reduction in benefits.
It just won't happen.
So where does that leave us?
It leaves us with socialized medicine, to be blunt. Obama was successful in changing the way we think about healthcare and government involvement.
I hate the idea of it because it empowers a corrupt government and puts it in more control over our lives.
But I don't see anyone brave enough to simply repeal Obamacare. We've already traveled too far down that road.
I will concede (for the moment) that we will see single-payer, socialized healthcare.
I hate it, I can't stand the idea of it. It's not because I am greedy either, to all the socialists that applaud government control.
It's going to make things generally worse for everyone. The system will be abused, the system will become corrupt, but it is the system that we now have to live with.
I'm old and won't be around for too many more years. But my children will have to deal with it. And that upsets me.
Well, I have everything I wanted to say down in one place. We will get socialized medicine.
originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: DBCowboy
How does allowing insurance across boarders save $$$?
And please be more specific that more competition, there are few large insurance co.'s to begin with. THey are looking to consolidate.
originally posted by: DBCowboy
I'm just offering my opinion.
Are there ways to reduce healthcare costs that I am unaware of?
originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: DBCowboy
For such a critic of Obamacare and Single Payer, you don't seem to know too much about either. Do you ever wonder why insurance costs so much in some states and so little in others? Why would you not associate that difference on the level of state implementation?
The insurance industry is never going to allow single payer because they can't survive it, no one in their right mind would pay their ridiculous costs if they can get a better, cheaper plan from the government. We forget though that the allowance of the insurance industry to be born, stole the ability of doctors, hospitals, chemists to set their own prices for services and products which then gave birth to big pharma and medical supplies and technology developers cart blanche to escape the free market and the consequences of supply and demand?
The Mob were job creators too and probably responsible for less lives lost, but they weren't allowed to continue.
originally posted by: craterman
I have the cure for our messed up health care. First, crossing state lines is a must, but the real cure is this: All providers must list 4-5000 procedures that they offer and the prices (inclusive). Then the insurance companies must list their payouts for all of these. Then the insured customer / patient gets to keep the difference. No in the network BS or out of the network BS. Fixed. The way it is now, nobody know what they are getting charged for (or why most times) and it is third party pay. The insurance are taking a cut of the costs, and they don't really give one damn what the costs are. The higher the costs, the more they make. 20% of a billion is a lot more that 20% of a million. And this is exactly what is being reflected in health care costs. They just go up and up. This tort reform is a smoke screen. As it is now, the loser of a lawsuit must pay costs of the winning party. This is and has been the rules of court. Now all they need to do is extend that cost liability to the lawyers pockets. You take a losing case as a lawyer, you can pay the winner's bill too. Lawyers don't tell winning clients about this rule of court either, because it ruins the lawyers risky big pay offs.
originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: DBCowboy
I don't know if you are old enough to remember what healthcare was like before 1965 and government programs. The county hospitals and doctors would adjust their fees according to patient affordability. They will never go back to that system. The elderly and poor did not do well under that system either.
originally posted by: queenofswords
Half the country will pay for the other half regardless. Workers and producers will be taxed to pay for the non-workers and non-producers. It will be an expensive tax because there are a helluva lot of the latter.
Already about 50% of babies born here are financed by Medicaid.
There will be fraud, waste, and abuse because....well, it will be government run.
It's a conundrum. It is something we have to grapple with ideologically, morally, and economically.