How many people will lose their jobs under Obamacare?

Right now we have a health care system in place that utilizes many different insurance companies. If we go to Obamacare, a single payer system, what will happen to all the insurance companies? More importantly what will happen to all the people that work at the insurance companies?

I know that one of the problems with our health care system is the insurance companies but it sure employees a lot of people. You have to have those people to deny your claim. You have to have those people who answer the phone but actually can’t help you. You have to have those people who review your prescription and override what your doctor wanted to prescribe. You need people that tell you that you don't really need your hip replace, make do with crutches.

That’s a lot of people.
What will they do for a living under Obamacare?

Of all the problems to point out about this healthcare plan this is one of the most trivial. The potential loss of jobs as we move towards a single payer system would only be representative of a move towards a more economically efficient system. To what degree your tax dollars are being used to "stack the deck" in favor of the government run health care system and what that cost is relative to the benefits (or lack therof) of the system is the issue you want to examine.

However, I must applaud your civility and concern for other human beings, both are desperately lacking on this planet currently.

Originally posted by randolrs1
Of all the problems to point out about this healthcare plan this is one of the most trivial. .

...said the man not currently employed by a private insurance company.

There are private insurance companies in countries with socialized medicine; the demand is smaller, but it is definitely existant. There may be a mass of layoffs, but not everyone would lose their jobs.

[edit on 22-7-2009 by LSDeviant]

Honestly, this bill will put just about every private insurance agency out of business, bad news good news, ehh, depends on which way you loo at it. The thing is the government will hire most of these people to do the same thing they were doing.

Private industry will die and the newly created public industry will thrive. The job loss I'm worried about is the small business. This bill will put a lot them out of business. Then taxes will increase, etc.

My .02 dollars

[edit on 22-7-2009 by Hastobemoretolife]

This was an attempt at humor.

Read the types of jobs that I was referring to.

Somehow I think that you all didn't get past the post title before you prepared your response.

As I've said before, government subsidized health care is not new to America. We've had Medicare and Medicaid for a generation or more. Many states have public hospitals, which are often teaching hospitals, that provide care for the indigent. There is also of course the VA system.

As someone who has for most of his life had to depend on public health care through both the state and the VA, I can tell you that it is better than nothing. In most cases the health care is more than adequate.

The problems that one must face in making do with this kind of health care is that the patient is at the mercy of the system. Sometimes it works out really well and sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes you can get your needs met in a timely fashion and sometimes you have to wait and wait.

Often, you have to put up with hospital staff that is worse than rude. Sometimes they are dangerous and your recourses for such maltreatment or malpractice are nonexistent.

Don't get me wrong. When I was destitute or nearly so and I needed health care, I was willing to put up with almost anything to get the treatment I needed. In a couple of cases, I would certainly have died without that care.

However, I can tell you that the typical American is not going to want to put up with the indignities that I have had to endure to get the care I needed, from smart-ass doctors, to nurses who let me go for hours without administering my pain meds, to the aides that would let my broken leg hit the floor just so they could get a chuckle, to physical therapists who thought they were on the staff of some medieval torture chamber.

Tongue-in-cheek rhetorical questions about the impending health care bill are fine, but I can assure you that this is no joking matter and if this bill passes, I can assure you that almost everyone who thinks this is good policy will probably live long enough to regret it.

If you have problems with your HMO now, believe me, in time you will long for the halcyon days of private-sector managed care.


[edit on 2009/7/22 by GradyPhilpott]