EYE-OPENER..Universal HealthCare In America Would Be Surprisingly Inexpensive.!

originally posted by: vonclod
a reply to: ketsuko

Maybe you want the guy who want's to be top dog dollar wise..I want the guy who cares about people..and makes a pretty good living.
And WTF is free?? it's paid via taxes, not free last time I did my income tax.

I want the guy who is best at what he does. Period.

After that, all other considerations are secondary. Think about it. The best person may not be the most caring, and he may not be the cheapest. But do you want the guy who makes mistakes often but cares the most? Do you want the guy who is cheapest but doesn't know aorta from pulmonary artery?

On the part about free, I get that. That's the point a lot of people are making. "Free" health care via single payer will not be free, and our costs on everything else across the board will have to go up in order to even attempt to cover anything close to the level of care we have now because they can't jack up the income taxes enough to cover it without inciting open revolt, so they'll have to tuck in all kinds of other taxes that are hidden.

We'll likely see a VAT in addition to our income taxes and that will be just as manipulative as the income tax in it's own way. But look at all the single payer countries and that's what they do. They tax about 50% off the top, and if they don't, then look at the VAT and you'll see why because that's where they make it up.

And even then, they can't cover the costs, so they ration with long waiting lists for care. Places in Canada have 6 month wait times for things like an MRI. You better hope you aren't needing that test because you might have an aggressive cancer.

a reply to: carewemust

Or stop requiring health insurers to sell unrealistic plans that people cannot afford.

I'll bet a lot those people had plans prior to Obamacare, and they'd likely still have plans if Obamacare hadn't been passed.

The only way we can get Universal HealthCare for all US Citizens, is to stop fighting among ourselves, we need to focus on hold our representatives feet to the fire on things we all agree on. If they fail to do what we ask, we need to do a recall vote and get them the hell out. It would be very hard for corporations to buy them off, if we use the power given to us to force our reps to do as we wish.

a reply to: carewemust

The bottom line on why medical prices in the US are so high is collusion, market manipulation, barriers to entry, anti-competitive practices and laws, protection from imports, and government. All of this bordering on if not fully extortion and racketeering.

Imagine if you will a full service gas station that sells gas and your typical service station convenience store goods. This station posts no gas prices, gives no estimates on costs pf re[airs. Billing is done after goods are consumed or services are rendered. Gas is billed at $10 dollaars a gallon, a set of 4 new tires a $1200, brake jobs are billed at $1600.The station owner does however give "discounts" based on the auto insurance you have. If you have a certain company you may pay $2 a gallon for gas and 400 for new tires. You wouldn't stay in business very long even if you could stay out of jail for breaking most states consumer protection laws. However if you colluded with every shop in town to price the same way while also lobbying local, state, and federal to either not enforce consumer protection laws or protect these practices by law, barriers to entry, CON laws, mandatory auto service insurance, and government programs for those that can't afford insurance, you'd have an auto service and repair industry that looks a lot like our Healthcare industry. It's not a market it's a racket. Automotive repair pricing wasn't that different from this before consumer protection laws. You'd take you car in to the shop they'd tear it apart and charge you whatever the hell they thought you were able to pay basically extorting you before you'd get your car back. Medical costs today aren't terribly different .Estimated costs of procedures before service are almost unheard of, there are times when copays are higher than the cash cost of a drug or service and the pharmacy either doesn't mention it or is forbidden by contract with insurance or drug companies from even listing cash prices of drugs. Those without insurance, but uncovered by government assistance are billed outrageously and routinely end up in bankruptcy court or worse.

Maybe I've become even more jaded as I age but I've started viewing all the really great things the Medical Industry does in treating people and saving lives less as a laudable humanitarian endeavor and more as just a cynical practice the industry does so that they can extract as much of your wealth as possible over the long term through pricing, insurance, or government transfers via taxes and government healthcare programs.

At the current rate of growth of government spending on healthcare and tax receipts, in less than a decade, EVERY DOLLAR THE US TAKES IN TAXES WILL BE SPENT ON MEDICARE AND MEDICAID. It's foolish to think that the status quo will be maintained beyond the current and next Presidential terms. I see no vision or leadership in the House, Senate, or Executive right now that addresses this, so I'm planning for it all to blow up. I truly hope that more people come to see things this way so that at best someone in power implements a real plan, or at worst we remember who caused and supported the current paradigm and reward them accordingly when things go boom.

Imagine if you went to your doctor, and you had to pay him, but your paid him directly, and he had to consider in his setting of prices what his clientele could actually afford to pay for services rather than what an insurance conglomerate could afford to bargain over ...

Maybe we could all start paying for our routine care again instead of having to hope we had an insurance company or the government to stand between us and our doctor.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: carewemust

Or stop requiring health insurers to sell unrealistic plans that people cannot afford.

I'll bet a lot those people had plans prior to Obamacare, and they'd likely still have plans if Obamacare hadn't been passed.

Those pre ACA plans are what were unrealistic. They're the reason people would get sick and go bankrupt, or worse not even have coverage when they needed it.

Pre ACA plans are how the insurance model is supposed to work. Health care cannot function on an insurance model though, because insurance works only when illness is rare, but getting sick is a very common event.

No. Seriously, though:

originally posted by: ketsuko
Imagine if you went to your doctor, and you had to pay him, but your paid him directly, and he had to consider in his setting of prices what his clientele could actually afford to pay for services rather than what an insurance conglomerate could afford to bargain over ...

Maybe we could all start paying for our routine care again instead of having to hope we had an insurance company or the government to stand between us and our doctor.

I don't have to imagine.... I have a close to 90 year old mother who along with her siblings were born without the help of a doctor - though she survived millions of women and their children died in child birth.

If you want to see pay what you can afford medical care go to any third world country. People die from very easily treated illnesses.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: vonclod
a reply to: ketsuko

Maybe you want the guy who want's to be top dog dollar wise..I want the guy who cares about people..and makes a pretty good living.
And WTF is free?? it's paid via taxes, not free last time I did my income tax.

I want the guy who is best at what he does. Period.

After that, all other considerations are secondary. Think about it. The best person may not be the most caring, and he may not be the cheapest. But do you want the guy who makes mistakes often but cares the most? Do you want the guy who is cheapest but doesn't know aorta from pulmonary artery?

On the part about free, I get that. That's the point a lot of people are making. "Free" health care via single payer will not be free, and our costs on everything else across the board will have to go up in order to even attempt to cover anything close to the level of care we have now because they can't jack up the income taxes enough to cover it without inciting open revolt, so they'll have to tuck in all kinds of other taxes that are hidden.

We'll likely see a VAT in addition to our income taxes and that will be just as manipulative as the income tax in it's own way. But look at all the single payer countries and that's what they do. They tax about 50% off the top, and if they don't, then look at the VAT and you'll see why because that's where they make it up.

And even then, they can't cover the costs, so they ration with long waiting lists for care. Places in Canada have 6 month wait times for things like an MRI. You better hope you aren't needing that test because you might have an aggressive cancer.

The most expensive doc doesn't equate to being the best. It equates to him/her being the most expensive. Nothing more.
Why do you think that an NHS doctor is as thick as pigsh!t just because he uses his qualifications to save lives instead of ripping people off? Good grief.

I don't get how some of you people think I really don't. You measure success in dollars, if a person earns a fortune you give him your utmost respect regardless of whether or not he might be the bastardest bastard that ever walked the Earth. It isn't actually people you have respect for, it's their money. If they don't have money they don't get the snot off your nose let alone respect. Shallow, is what it's called.

Yes waiting lists for surgery, doc appointments and the rest of it. I'll tell you why it's all gone tits-up of late. Since the corrupt tories conned and cheated their way into govt they have systematically and deliberately and seriously underfunded our NHS because the tories want that juicy pie to be shared up between their own conflicts of interests and that of their super-rich cronies. All of this is happening now, £billions in our precious NHS contracts sold off to private interests to profit from. That's why the NHS has virtually stopped functioning, it worked perfectly well since its inception right up until the corrupt greedy tories handed chunks of it over to private for-profit interests. It's being destroyed by the greed of private interests and it's an absolute travesty.

You complain that taxes will go up to pay for a universal healthcare system, of course they will, but you wont be any worse off in your income because you won't be paying out thousands for health insurance or have to cough up the deductible.

I actually believe some people like being ripped off by insurance companies lol. I'll leave ya to it.

a reply to: jefwane


JefWane, you're speaking of what you feel is the "human factor" behind insanely high medical-care prices here in the U.S..

I'm merely stating facts, from an economic standpoint. The Physicians, Hospitals, Drug Companies, are charging so much money, because they can.

My Dad went to E.R. last month. One day in hospital. Bill was $19,000. His Medicare/MedSup paid $17,910. I called Hospital and told them that he couldn't pay the $1,100. They were OK with that, because their prices are over-inflated intentionally. The $17,910 received from Medicare/Humana gave them a big beautiful profit.

If they really wanted to give Americans universal healthcare all they'd have to do is give every American citizen a million dollars to spend on healthcare. Less than 500 million and probably almost nobody would oppose them. Instead, they keep turning it into a power grab like forcing people to buy insurance and fining them if they refuse.

It's really about control. If they can control your healthcare, they own you. It's that damn simple.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

That would be a start, but what happens when you exhaust you reach your $1 million limit? Not hard to do over a lifetime. One person in Iowa is running up $1 million every month, on Blue Cross.

BTW..this person will need to move to another state at the end of this year, because Iowa is losing its last two health insurers on 12.31.2017.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: BrianFlanders

That would be a start, but what happens when you exhaust you reach your $1 million limit? Not hard to do over a lifetime. One person in Iowa is running up $1 million every month, on Blue Cross.

How often does that really happen? Most people are not going to spend anywhere near that before age 65.

Remember. Their excuse for Osamacare was people who have no health insurance at all. 1 million dollars to spend as you see fit on your healthcare is much better than nothing.

The reason they didn't go with something like this is because they have ulterior motives. They went straight for the throat with the individual mandate the first chance they got. That says everything I need to know about what they're trying to do.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
If they really wanted to give Americans universal healthcare all they'd have to do is give every American citizen a million dollars to spend on healthcare. Less than 500 million and probably almost nobody would oppose them. Instead, they keep turning it into a power grab like forcing people to buy insurance and fining them if they refuse.

It's really about control. If they can control your healthcare, they own you. It's that damn simple.

1 million is nothing in terms of health care costs. Cancer treatment alone costs over $1 million.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
How often does that really happen? Most people are not going to spend anywhere near that before age 65.

You have a 50% chance of it in your lifetime.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: jefwane


JefWane, you're speaking of what you feel is the "human factor" behind insanely high medical-care prices here in the U.S..

I'm merely stating facts, from an economic standpoint. The Physicians, Hospitals, Drug Companies, are charging so much money, because they can.

My Dad went to E.R. last month. One day in hospital. Bill was $19,000. His Medicare/MedSup paid $17,910. I called Hospital and told them that he couldn't pay the $1,100. They were OK with that, because their prices are over-inflated intentionally. The $17,910 received from Medicare/Humana gave them a big beautiful profit.

Again, I'm so glad you are becoming aware of this!!

a reply to: carewemust

It great that your cool with the bezzle in healthcare as is. I'm not. There is no way that such a visit should have cost anywhere near that much. I truly hope your dad is alright and was treated well. A visit to an ER followed by 24-36 hours in a hopital probably involved a dozen tests, an ER diagnosis, a night of lodging, a few meals, and 2-3 physician visits after leaving the ER. Do you truly believe that value of services was rendered, and are you fine with those costs being passed along to everyone via forcrd payroll taxes like they were? That 20k bill was probably at most 5k worth of actual services. Medicare has always been promised as a 80/20 split with optional supplemental insurance. Had your family not been the victim of Medical Cartel pricing the bill would have been at most 5k (and only that high because use of ER) medicare would have paid 4K,your dads supplemental would have covered most of the rest at a fraction of his yearly premium, leaving him with a bill of maybe $200. It seems like you're perfectly happy with the Medical Establishment raping your fellow taxpayer to the tune 13k more than what it should be as long as you can negotiate nothing out of your pocket except taxes and premium. We put up with this because it's hard to accept that that great ER/ICU nurse or brilliant doctor who really did save someone we care about's life, is a part of a system that is trying and succeeding wonderfully at extracting for itself any value (wealth) that life saved might possibly offer this world in the future.

I'm 40 I fully expect the costs of healthcare if unaddressed in the next 1-2 years to blow up our economy,markets, budget, and possibly nation before I'm 55. Any plan public, private, or hybrid that does not address costs will only delay the inevitable for diminishingly short periods.

a reply to: ketsuko

And even then, they can't cover the costs, so they ration with long waiting lists for care. Places in Canada have 6 month wait times for things like an MRI. You better hope you aren't needing that test because you might have an aggressive cancer.

Source this claim. With reputable, verified sources. Not some idiotic meme, or "Trump-speak". Show us the data that supports your claim.

Now. Here.

Petulant child.

a reply to: carewemust

Added reply, I understand your economics about price and ability to pay. What happens when that system has sucked every penny of ability to pay, probably in the next decade or so if either AHA or AHCA remain in effect? The cost of healtcare from an economic perspective is a massive misalocation of resources that could be more productively used elsewhere. It's not largely a supply and demand issue as much as an issue of removing consumer from provider via insurance or government, Cartel and Monopolistic practices, protection from competition to existing players through barriers to entry and Certification Of Need (appropriately named CON laws),coding practices, arbitrary limitations imposed via things like limits to medical school seats not based on resource but on keeping supply of doctors down. It's a damn shame so many good people are either caught up in the scam by working in medical careers or simply unwillingness to look at common practices as the extortion like scams that they are. I get the feeling that those who are benefiting the most from the current system will be the ones saying "no one could have saw this coming" just like in 2007 with housing.