Senate goes ahead with Obamacare repeal without replacement

a reply to: TacSite18

so do you think insurance should be mandated by the federal government?

a reply to: TacSite18

They are involved, but in a quite limited capacity prior to the PPACA.

Medicaid has its place in our society, for sure (although it needs some refining), but I think that even the notion of automatic enrollment in a government health-insurance program solely based on age is a faulty concept from the word "go."

So, whether or not our federal government has been in the health-insurance business for longer than 7 years (I figured that it would be readily understood that I was discussing the total usurping of the industry vs. what Medicaid/Medicare were before that), the bottom line is that it has no business in engulfing the entire industry.

originally posted by: agenda51
a reply to: TacSite18

so do you think insurance should be mandated by the federal government?

No, I think it should be provided to every American in a sensible way. Currently any human who enters a US hospital emergency room must receive treatment according to federal law. American, Russian, North Korean, it does not matter.
So we all have access to health care. Problem is, this is the most expensive type of health care there is. There is no preventative care. There is no follow up. Then when the person slides back into a bad condition, they are back at the emergency room. They get re-treated. It is the law.

Then the cost for the treatment, if the person cannot afford to pay, or if the person does not have medicare or medicade, or a VA voucher, or is enrolled on the Black-lung act, or 47 other government programs, get passed on to the general public, in the form of increased charges to insurance companies, who raise premiums on the people who have those plans, who wind up paying in the end.

So you are paying for single payer in a round-about way anyway. Why not do it right, and smart?

As a result, the US pays the most of any industrialized nation in the world but gets the worst overall outcomes. This is stupid. We are paying the money, and we get the worst outcomes. Americans are smarter than that!

a reply to: TacSite18

so after all the shenanigans that the government has conducted in to basically rip off the taxpayer to pay for this hidden single payer system you believe that they will just do the right thing and provide more care for less and not mandate everyone.

I am not trying to set you up here I am just having a little trouble with this blind faith you seem to have. We know our government is corrupt. We know corporations are greedy. W e know they are in cahoots to basically extort the typical tax payer. So where is the justification to give them more power to do so? I dont get it. You're practically endorsing extortion of the american populace.

originally posted by: agenda51
a reply to: TacSite18

so after all the shenanigans that the government has conducted in to basically rip off the taxpayer to pay for this hidden single payer system you believe that they will just do the right thing and provide more care for less and not mandate everyone.

I am not trying to set you up here I am just having a little trouble with this blind faith you seem to have. We know our government is corrupt. We know corporations are greedy. W e know they are in cahoots to basically extort the typical tax payer. So where is the justification to give them more power to do so? I dont get it. You're practically endorsing extortion of the american populace.

I am a bit confused about what you are referencing when you write, “the shenanigans that the government has conducted in to basically rip off the taxpayer to pay for this hidden single payer system.”
I think the system we have evolved over time, at least since WWII, and has gotten out of control. I am not ascribing the current system to any system planned by the government, although I would not rule that out.


When you say, “We know our government is corrupt” I would agree that there is corruption in every human endeavor.
And
“We know corporations are greedy.” If that is what you call the profit motive in our system.
and
“W e know they are in cahoots to basically extort the typical tax payer.” I assume you mean the federal government and business. Well now, that might be another thread. I think this will pull this thread off topic.
And
“So where is the justification to give them more power to do so? I dont get it. You're practically endorsing extortion of the american populace”
And
you started with “blind faith you seem to have.”
Well, this is a bit of a straw man. I never said I had any blind faith. And I never endorsed extortion, unless you mean paying the taxes that I legally owe. That I owe because our elected officials have written those taxes into laws.
I guess I have reasons to believe that a representative democracy can function, if the people take time to educate themselves. I do not call that blind faith, as I have seen it fail several times.
However, I do know that Medicare and medicaide work fairly well, only require 1% overheard (as opposed to 20% overhead in the insurance market that goes to millionaire CIOS and stock holders), and that most of that overhead goes to the salaries of middle class American who have no profit agenda to deny my claims.

ETA.
Why not just ramp up Medicare and Medicaide to include all US Citizens?

a reply to: TacSite18

No straw man or cross examination here.... just trying to understand your way of thinking.

I dont know what the solution is either other than taking the government out of healthcare as much as possible and having more competition in the free market to make your own choices. If the government were on our side they would be busting up corporations that get so big and so powerful they can basically buy political parties. Problem is as it stands both the right and the left basically work for these corporations.

this is why trump was elected. We basically needed someone who was not right or left and was on the side of the American populace.

a reply to: agenda51

You are getting ripped off now. We who have single payer healthcare pay less and get better healthcare then you in the states.

originally posted by: testingtesting
a reply to: agenda51

You are getting ripped off now. We who have single payer healthcare pay less and get better healthcare then you in the states.

Do you mean this kind of health care?
Charlie Gard's life support will be removed after his parents lose their final appeal

No thank you.

originally posted by: agenda51
a reply to: TacSite18

No straw man or cross examination here.... just trying to understand your way of thinking.

I dont know what the solution is either other than taking the government out of healthcare as much as possible and having more competition in the free market to make your own choices. If the government were on our side they would be busting up corporations that get so big and so powerful they can basically buy political parties. Problem is as it stands both the right and the left basically work for these corporations.

this is why trump was elected. We basically needed someone who was not right or left and was on the side of the American populace.

Well, I want some form of health insurance. I know everyone always says, “Join a pool.” I cannot think of a bigger pool than all US citizens. Then we would have one insurance company. However, that company would be skimming 20% off the top to pay for expensive CIOs and stockholder dividends.
Therefore, if we had the government manage the process, cut out the insurance for profit companies, and run it like they do Medicare and Medicaid, and then the overhead would be 1%. The 1% would go to middle class Americans to run the program, either government workers or contractors, not to millionaires. I also think medical services providers would have to mainly deal with one set of forms, codes, etc. to get payment, so overall cost would go down.
I still would see some folks who would opt into supplementary private insurance to cover gaps.
Oh sure, there would be fraud, but we see that anyway despite what system we have. The difference is when you do fraud on an insurance company it is often treated as a civil case – with the government, it is jail time.
As I noted above, everyone has access to health care in the US, everyone. You don’t even have to be a citizen, just show up at a hospital emergency room. We pay for that now. Why not use the existing systems we have in place to provide all American with medical insurance that cuts out the profit motive for middlemen who have a motive ($$$) to deny our health care and keep us sick.
Then we could be done with this horrible, divisive argument that has been going on in this country for the last 30 years, and get on to other things to make our lives better. I know in 50 years people will look back at us and wonder what was in our drinking water to make us so stupid over something so obvious.
So, why not just ramp up Medicare and Medicaide to include all US Citizens?

originally posted by: BlueAjah

originally posted by: testingtesting
a reply to: agenda51

You are getting ripped off now. We who have single payer healthcare pay less and get better healthcare then you in the states.

Do you mean this kind of health care?
Charlie Gard's life support will be removed after his parents lose their final appeal


Sorry, but that does not cut it either. Under most US insurance plans today, a company would quit paying for anything but basic life support when the doc said no hope of recovery. Yes, the child would live for a few years, but eventually shrivel up and die. Before ACA, most policies had lifetime caps that would have pulled the plug on payment long ago, leaving the choice up to the parents to foot the whole bill for even basic life support, for what is regrettably a baby with no hope of regaining and thoughts, sight, or conscious life.

No thank you.

a reply to: BlueAjah

The facts still remain you pay the most for some of the worst western run healthcare.

a reply to: TacSite18

biggest problem is your centralizing all of the power reguarding health care to one place... and that place being the US government at that. I wont go through the long list of incidences where the Federal government has abused its power over the populace but I am sure you get where I am coming from. Personally i think they are the last ones who should have that kind of power.

My belief is the more decentralized, the more options, the more approaches to health care the better. Co-ops, health savings, catastopic plans etc. etc. Lots of options...lots of competition. One centralized broad application will never succeed because there are just too many variables.

Besides that i see zero evidence that corruption has done nothing but grow bigger and gotten even bolder as governmnet control has increased through the years. You may trust a paticular program under a peticular administration but the next administration could bring you to your knees and through out some BS like "elections have consequences". which is code words for screw you populace I won and its my turn to rape you.

I can't believe we keep voting for the same idiots in Congress and then sit here arguing over the wrong things.

We argue over governments rights to force us to buy insurance or insurance laws that raise our premiums and we argue about paying for each others medical coverage.

But none of that is the real issue.

Americans, like myself, pay thousands, Tens of thousands and in some case hundreds of thousands of dollars in our life times to Health Insurance, Medicaid/medicare, Social Security, Federal and state income and Sales taxes.

It's not that I want anyone to pay for my or my families health care. I've already done it. And probalby paid for yours too, if your reading this. All I want is the ability to get the healthcare coverage I've already paid for and to force my insurance carrier to cover my family since I've been paying them for decades. All of that with out having to fight them for procedures that we need and to keep our coverage in case they want to drop us. And all of that without going banktrupt.

Since I pay taxes and have done so for the better part of 50 years, I wouldn't mind if "MY" tax money went toward universal healthcare or single payer health care subsidized by the government instead of my tax money going towards -the NSA< Homeland security, Wars in the middle east, tax subsidies for coal and oil and auto companies adn wall street bailouts.

Seems fair?

a reply to: amazing

seems fair that you want something for your money put in but its not reality. That money is gone and was stolen from the american populace. Follow the money if you want to know where it all went. Thinking universal health care will somehow give you back what you put in is not going to do anything but throw future generations into more debt than we/they already have.

Its like giving crack to a drug addict so they will go straight and get their lives together.

You can draw all kinds of paralells to things like social security, NAFTA etc. etc. all which have been disasters and only ended up leaving the american populace with the short end of the stick while being told by the mafia how great everything is. Meanwhile we are around 20trillion in debt with a very horendous future ahead for both us and future generations of Americans.

this again his the entire point why we put Trump in Office and why he will stay there.

originally posted by: agenda51
a reply to: TacSite18

biggest problem is your centralizing all of the power reguarding health care to one place... and that place being the US government at that. I wont go through the long list of incidences where the Federal government has abused its power over the populace but I am sure you get where I am coming from. Personally i think they are the last ones who should have that kind of power.

My belief is the more decentralized, the more options, the more approaches to health care the better. Co-ops, health savings, catastopic plans etc. etc. Lots of options...lots of competition. One centralized broad application will never succeed because there are just too many variables.

Besides that i see zero evidence that corruption has done nothing but grow bigger and gotten even bolder as governmnet control has increased through the years. You may trust a paticular program under a peticular administration but the next administration could bring you to your knees and through out some BS like "elections have consequences". which is code words for screw you populace I won and its my turn to rape you.

But we trust the federal govt with the most powerful military in the world and enought nukes to kill every thing living over a few pounds on the entire planet in less then an hour?

Also, the single payer model only replaces insurance companies, not the entire medical system. Check out how other countries do single payer. Check out why Costs Rica and the Dominican Republic have overall better health outcomes than the US, and do it for a lot less money.

Either way, the govt is the biggest $$$ influence on our system right now, and has been for over 35 years. They have been running the insurance for retired and folks in poverty in the US since the 1960's. I have not seen major abuse. Ask a retired person if they want to give up their Medicare for some other system. You'll see how fast an 80 can whack a skull with a cane.

I think we have problems with big brother that are entirely outside heath care. My 2 cents. Agree to disagree. Have a beer.

a reply to: TacSite18

all that and yet you still want to let them take more control?

originally posted by: agenda51
a reply to: amazing

seems fair that you want something for your money put in but its not reality. That money is gone and was stolen from the american populace. Follow the money if you want to know where it all went. Thinking universal health care will somehow give you back what you put in is not going to do anything but throw future generations into more debt than we/they already have.

Its like giving crack to a drug addict so they will go straight and get their lives together.

You can draw all kinds of paralells to things like social security, NAFTA etc. etc. all which have been disasters and only ended up leaving the american populace with the short end of the stick while being told by the mafia how great everything is. Meanwhile we are around 20trillion in debt with a very horendous future ahead for both us and future generations of Americans.

this again his the entire point why we put Trump in Office and why he will stay there.

You're still missing the point though. I live in America, make great money, pay taxes and don't have a lot of debt, credit is good. Everything is good. I should be able to afford healthcare. Seems legit?

It's our government that screwed this all up. Way before ObamaCare. It's going to have to be the Government that gets us out of it. That could be repealing laws, or enacting laws that make it illegal for the medical industry to take advantage of us or make it easier for the medical industry to provide us healthcare without going through insurance. Obama Care was a first shot at trying to fix things. It still needs to be fixed.

a reply to: amazing

again why we elected a non-politician.

personally I think we are screwed. I dont see us ever wrestling back power they took. They seem to be hell bent on forcing the entire country to implode before they fix this mess. At least There is some hope though with Trump.

originally posted by: agenda51
a reply to: TacSite18

all that and yet you still want to let them take more control?

You are really stuck in the "control" issue. As I said above, I don't know what you mean by that.

But I would opt in to the federal government expanding Medicaid to include all UScitizens, and I accept that my taxes would go up. I currently pay $18,000 insurance a year for me, my wife and 15 year old son. I would love to cancel that policy, as about 20% goes to line the pockets of CIOs and millionaire stockholders. I

Take my $18,000 in taxes, I will cancel my for profit insurance, the administration costs will drop to 1%, and that will go to middle class Americans administrating the expanded program.

So I would support expansion. In a representative government, no one "takes anything" for very long when the Amercan people disagree.The people vote, are represented, and get to vote again. Repeate. Alcohol was illegal for a while. Didn't last. Used to be able to buy opium over the counter. Not anymore. Could not smoke pot, now some places you can. Funny how that works.

originally posted by: agenda51
a reply to: TacSite18

all that and yet you still want to let them take more control?

At the present, insurance companies are in control of your health. They decide if they will pay their part for a drug, medical treatment, etc. Given it's now a big business to make money, the costs are such that very few have the wealth level to make their own call.