How to Really Fix Healthcare. Conservatives, take a Nitro before reading this

When was the last time the US had free-market health care? Was it before WWII?

We should try it.

My screen name comes from the name of a company I started very long ago. We wanted Veritas but it was already taken. We looked for other Latin names but did not find what we were looking for. At that time there were relatively few who understood enough Latin to know the difference. Today, of course, we have essentially unlimited access to information. Wisdom remains beyond the reach of most.

Your posts have a huge number of unstated assumptions. I do not believe you are interested in discerning the truth nearly as much as you are in scoring a point.

 

Well as the right and the left argue about the ACA to the point of nauseum, here's my 2 cents! Lets abolish the Fed and the IRS and get back on a gold standard, re-open our factories and mills to start making things again and putting Americans back to work and then when everyone is making a living again and not being taxed to death they can afford good health care for their families and won't need the help of "big brother" and the ACA because the free market system would ensure that there is plenty of competition and the insurance companies will be competing for everyone's business. Now wasn't that simple? Take the government out of the equation and suddenly everything gets easier to figure out! While the Republicans are talking about defunding Obamacare I'm thinking... why stop there, lets de-fund the entire Federal Government and start again! LOL! Well a guy can dream can't he?

 

Actually, I agree that we should try it, but with a safety net. Let the patient pay for their own care, but cover everyone with a high deductible catastrophic care insurance that really is insurance and not a pre paid health care system.

As for my "assumptions", I've backed them up at every turn. Once again, I've "assumed", based on data that can easily be had online, that the United States spends more than any other nation on health care. I've assumed, based on logic and simple math, that we can't afford our health care system, and are going to have to make some changes in it. I've further assumed, based on life expectancy stats, that those horrible "socialistic" nations that have universal health care are doing quite well.

Now, if any of my assumptions are wrong, please show me, using actual numbers, facts, figures and logic, that they are wrong. Simply calling the sites that publish data "lies" isn't very convincing.

 

Shall we assume that the person or persons who put together that graphic have the agenda of convincing you that socialism works better than free markets? What are the assumptions about differences in quality? If you have to wait a week to repair a broken limb is that a better outcome than if you have to wait a half hour? What standard is used to measure the value of payments? Is it measured in hours of effort? If I have to work an hour in order to pay a doctor for an hour of his or her effort is that a better measure than saying it cost me $300US but it only cost you 80DM?

Why is it better to allow someone else to make decisions for you? Why should I have to put up with the tyranny of someone deciding for me that all I can have is one kind of coverage?
When you say we cannot afford our health care system what do you mean? I can afford it. I pay for mine. You pay for yours. If we get the government out of it you will find that you will be able to buy what you want given the amount you are willing to pay.

Why is your measure a better measure than some other measure?

What are the relative differences in the laws? Maybe what we actually need is tort reform where the loser in a lawsuit pays all of the costs. Maybe caps on awards to some small, reasonable number, is a better way to change the cost of care. And maybe those measures will drive down the cost of health care far more than moving toward a socialist system intended to redistribute wealth and control us.

I believe I could come up with 50 more unstated assumptions but what is the point?

I am one of the productive. I can put my time to better use than to do more than illustrate that a simple graphic can conceal as well as reveal.

 

Do those countries admit as many sick people as we do? How would we do if we eliminated all of the blacks? What would our numbers look like then? If we stopped allolwing in a million or more immigrants from all over a very sick world what would our numbers look like? Someone is not being honest. A picture can be made with an agenda. Or the person can be a simpleton.

 

Although one can certainly quibble on the details, that plan is far superior to Obamacare.

 

Perhaps you should take a closer look at the explanation of benefits and find out what your insurance company actually paid and what was written off.

 

Yes, it is, but it isn't politically possible. The right wing would dub it "socialism", while the left wing would say it was cruel to the poor to make them pay a token of their costs. The insurance industry, meanwhile, would lobby against it with all of their $$might.

 

1. Yes, more.
2. Going back to segregation and racism is not the answer.
3. We're not the only country allowing immigration, not by a long shot.
4. That someone is not me.

 

1. Where is your evidence?
2. That is not the point. We have a large part of our population that is dysfunctional. They skew the results.
3. We accept people now that we would never have accepted in the past. They bring their diseases with them. Eliminate them and the cost of health care goes way down.
4. Perhaps you have proven to be part of the problem. Your dismiss enormous difficulties that show you are comparing apples to oranges.

Socialism will not make the worse off better. It only makes the better worse off.

 

Bronze plans generally have $5,000-6,000 deductibles (double that for family plans). How big a deductible do you need?

 

I am comparing the health care system of the US with those of other modern nations. If you think that our demographics are to blame for the high costs we are experiencing, please, show some evidence of that. The obvious difference is that we don't have UHC and they do.

 

No I don't think it's politically possible, but in all of my reading on health care policy since 2009 that seems to be the one that health care economists, if you strip out the ideology and current constitution and law, would make the most sense from a strictly economic point of view; it's the best one to both control health care inflation and provide catastrophic coverage to everyone.

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Typical catastrophic plan deductibles, $10,000 to $12,000.

 

For a family plan or for a self-only plan?

 

Pre Obamacare, you could have gotten a range of deductibles for family or self only on the individual insurance market. Usually for a particular plan, the deductible was the same regardless if you purchased a plan just for you or if you bought one for the family, however the out of pocket would be different and the family plan would of course cost more. Irrelevant now though since they can no longer be sold. The only way you can get one is if your employer carries one, and I believe 2014 is the last year they will be allowed for employer plans.

 

Plans on the individual market still offer a range of deductibles (up to the limits for high deductible plans that can be paired with HSAs that were established a decade ago). I don't know what you're saying can no longer be sold.

 

If you say so.

 

Deductibles vary across actuarial value tiers (which now have metal names) and, to a degree, within metal tiers.

This graphic looks at deductibles in the new marketplaces using averages (so it loses the variation within a tier--not all bronze plans on the market offer the same deductible, etc) but it gets the point across:


It's not all that difficult to just browse plans on healthcare.gov and see what's available in your local market (or others).

 

But why do we pay more? I believe part of our problem lies in the fact that we consume about 80% of the world's pills. Why? Something shady is going on here, and I don't think it has to do with a free market or socialist market health care. Corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse is our problem, and that stuff is going to be there with Ocare or not. It's time we confront our real problems. We are being scammed by crooks; someone tell me how Ocare changes that.

 

I just tried to browse plans on healthcare.gov, they want a SS number just to freakin look at plans. No thanks morons.

 

No, they don't.

https://www.healthcare.gov/find-premium-estimates/

 

Here are the 2 messages I get, along with a list of plans that are more than $200 per month which is completely unrealistic on my $1300 a month income. It says I may be able to get help, but wtf knows how, because it doesn't really say, it just starts asking for my personal information.

Eligible for help paying for coverage
This group is probably eligible for a premium tax credit.

This means that you may get a tax credit to use toward the cost of paying for a private health plan that you purchase through the Marketplace.

Note: this isn't a final determination. You'll need to submit a Marketplace application to get an actual eligibility statement.


And this message:

Based on a household size of one and income of $18,000, you may qualify for a $164/month tax credit you can choose to apply to your premium for these plans. This tax credit has been applied to the premiums below.

You may also qualify for the reduced out-of-pocket expenses shown in the plans below.

 

First of all, with that income you'd definitely get help in the form of a tax credit that defrays some of the cost. And the way you get that is by actually creating an account and choosing a plan in the marketplace. You have the option of having the government apply the tax credit when you buy your plan, knocking down the amount you personally pay for it at that time.

The only way you'd be paying $200/month is if you choose one of the more expensive plans on the market (one of the pricier gold plans or a platinum plan).

 

I guess I'm not clear what your point is. Catastrophic and High Deductible plans as I described are no longer allowed to be sold on the individual insurance market (unless you have a hardship exemption or are under 30), so you insisting that the Bronze plans are catastrophic and high deducible plans, then posting a graph showing they are not doesn't seem to make any point.

Maybe you could be clearer. What are you trying to say?

 

Bronze plans are high-deductible plans. And not just in the sense that their deductibles are numerically high (which they are), but in the sense that the term has existed in federal law for a decade. Ten years ago Congress created Health Savings Accounts with the requirement that if you wanted an HSA you had to be enrolled in a high deductible health plan. A walk through marketplace offerings on healthcare.gov will reveal plenty of bronze plans that are eligible to be paired with HSAs. Why? Because they're high deductible health plans.

They're one end of the spectrum of deductible available in the marketplace. On the one end you can find plans with deductibles as low as zero, and on the other you can find HDHPs (and pair them with an HSA if you like).