I don't think the government needs to be meddling in healthcare at all. I mean we have Medicare for the aged (good), Medicaid for the poor (good), and on a free market, those in the middle can buy whatever health insurance they want to (if government stays out of it). Of course I know a few folks slip through the cracks (happened to me once), but that is always going to be and obviously some have with government owned healthcare too. Also, as far as provisions for people who are already sick, doesn't this fly in the face of the whole nature of health insurance? That you can't wait until you're sick to buy it? I mean my car insurance company won't cover my car either if I wait until I have an accident to buy it. And the idea of letting 26 year old "kids" stay on their parent's insurance I think is ridiculous. Even though it helped my daughter for a while. Might have been good for me, but for the country, I don't think so.
Medicare and Medicaid are government programs. So by definition they are the "government meddling in healthcare." Much of the increase in insured population under Obamacare happened because of the Medicaid expansion that was a part of it. Why didn't you tell your daughter to get her own health insurance if you feel this way? Why is it ok for your daughter to benefit but not others? Yeah, like "a few" million people. Which creates a huge burden on the healthcare system and on those that do have insurance, as they end up subsidizing the uninsured persons medical expenses. If a person who was insured lost their coverage (through loss of a job and hence loss of their employer sponsored insurance, for example), they could be declined when attempting to purchase new/different coverage if they had a "preexisting condition" (such as cancer, or pregnancy to name a few).
Hello, Bridget. Keep in mind that the more people that are insured, the more money it saves us. It saves money by making the "risk pool" larger, and it saves us money by not having their medical bills paid by welfare. What costs us money is when people who can afford health insurance are paying for the health insurance of those who cannot afford it. This is the flaw with Obamacare. It is the reason premiums are going up and up, and coverage is getting less and less. I would like to see the government quit regulating the private insurance industry. However, I could see having a funding mandate. Let me explain. Currently, 49% of all insured people are insured through their employers. What I would suggest is a funding mandate that would bring that number up to 100% of all employed people. Currently, you and your employer split a 2.9% tax on your wages which pays for about one third of the cost of Medicare (Parts A, B, and D). If we paid 9% it would pay for the whole thing. Since seniors account for 75% of all health care spending we could cover everyone else with another 3%. This would pay to put everyone on Medicare, and it would save the federal government about $300 billion a year. This 12% of salary could be split between employer and employee, 6% each. This would not be adding a new program; it would be simply opening an existing program to everyone. Private insurance products could supplement Medicare by paying for deductibles, charges, and expenses not covered by Medicare. My two cents ...
What you are saying sounds good to me, although clearly you know a lot more about the workings of this than I do. Why did my daughter use my insurance? I guess because I pay for that, whether I think it's right or not. I try to favor the greater good though. What I noticed is that insurance worked well before the big HMOs came along and began paying for everything. Does anyone remember when insurance only paid for expenses you couldn't budget for (not prescriptions, physicals and well-baby checkups)? And insurance was affordable for pretty much everyone. I pretty much always believe that the government should stay out of most of our lives and that a free market works well.
Without a universal "Medicare for All" government system, you will always get unfair variations in cost and coverage from one state to another. In addition it is a grave conflict of interest for a health insurance company to profit from minimizing services and maximizing cost. Can't you see that? Add to that the fact that health insurance CEOs have the highest average compensation of all businesses in the U.S. You must be too young to remember what we had happening in the 1990s when all we had for those under 65 was private insurance. Rates were going up as much as 18% per year like mine did in one year with about 11% being the average otherwise. A huge percentage of people had no coverage for multiple reasons. And thousands of people each year were documented as dying because they couldn't afford healthcare. Many others paid for healthcare at the cost of liquidation of their retirement funds and foreclosure on their homes. Is that really what you want? And a big advantage of systems of national healthcare like there is in Canada is that theirs is very focused on preventative care that catches health problems in advance when it can be corrected more easily, more reliably, and with less cost. We haven't had private insurance that does that. That is why national healthcare is so perfect. EVERYBODY pays a tax that is less than their typical cost of healthcare now, and so everyone is covered. If you're not well, you go to a doctor for treatment. No gimmicks. Realize that the administrative overhead for Medicare is about 3% while that of the private health insurance industry averages about 25%. National healthcare would disconnect health insurance from employers. Wouldn't that be good for business? Any employer connection is inappropriate just as your health itself has no connection with your employer.
Be aware of conflicts of interest. I agree that the government should stay out of some things, like manufacturing of shoes, appliances, autos, food, landscaping, and other such services and commodities. But there are some things that private business should be kept out of because of inherent conflicts of interest, like healthcare, education, postal services, banking, and issuing of licenses.
Oh they need to replace it with something that helps the people who have pre-existing conditions or have hit their lifetime max. I know a kid who had Leukemia. He is 5+ years out of it now, but under the old system he would have been uninsurable for the rest of his life because of an illness when he was 8 that took 4 years and a boatload of Benjamins to beat back.
Are you paid by an insurance company??? The government is the only one who can constrain the greed of insurance companies. The whole "healthcare for profit" system favors profit over care. What are people with a pre-existing condition supposed to do? Die quietly? As to "the middle can buy whatever health insurance they want to " - they could under ObamaCare, also. What ObamaCare DID do was rule out worthless insurance policies that only covered things like zombie attacks, etc. There is no "government owned healthcare" except for the VA. It is ALL private healthcare - it is just how you pay for it. If you are wealthy, no problem. For those of us who aren't wealthy, we need an insurance to keep one illness from bankrupting us. Medicare pays health bills for less cost than private insurance - because Medicare does not make a profit. ObamaCare put a limit on how much profit private insurance companies can make - the GOP says they can rape you again - no profit limit.
I find it curious that even good Republicans, after eight years of Obama, have internalized the notion that the government MUST be involved in healthcare in some way. So now, we are really just tweaking obamacare. Here's an idea, if government feels like it must be involved. What if they required that all insurance companies, to be licensed, must offer an old fashioned catastrophic policy, at low cost, say no higher than $100 for a single person, $200 for a family (per month), that covers only stuff you can't budget for like emergency care, high cost tests, hospitalization, at an 80/20 deductible? Which would also stop people from running to the hospital for the sniffles, because the 20% deductible would be more than the cost of an office call. The insurance companies could still sell the solid gold Cadillac policies that cover everything and I am betting a lot of people would still buy them because people are totally sold on the idea of insurance covering EVERYTHING that happens to them. But people who can't afford those would have an option. Opinions? ,
EVERY country with national healthcare has far lower costs for it than we do, and many of them have better health outcomes.
Of course I'm not paid by an insurance company. But by being overly concerned with the CEO's compensation, it seems to get into a class warfare issue that I am not concerned about. I do see your point about being bankrupted by an illness. Even though the hospital has to treat you, that doesn't mean they won't charge you. I don't really have an answer for that, except that they can't squeeze blood out of a tomato. But I realize they can take your children's inheritance (your house), which would be sad. I guess no system is perfect.
So you worry more about labels than data? Class warfare is being waged against you when you are charged high and unreasonable costs to line the pockets of the wealthy. By not responding to it you are rolling over and letting it harm us all.
Don't say "of course". Insurance companies employ a lot of people. I think you need to think about this a LOT more than you have, It's like the quick answer - "nobody is refused health care. You can always go to an emergency room and be treated." - True for a broken arm, but cancer? Not so much.
Some how your quotes got all messed it. There are certain conditions which pretty much guaranteed that you would not get coverage under the old system. Besides all that, there were obscure lifetime coverage limits not that many people hit which he did. He spent a good bit of those 4 years battling the disease in and out of one of the best hospitals in the country getting cord blood every chance they had to give it to him, circling the drain 3 or 4 times.
I am glad your friend got care and is better. I know for people who lost their jobs, there was COBRA, which I believe enabled people to have insurance until they were able to buy it in the usual way. Honestly, I can't remember how that worked, except that it was too expensive for me, but I wasn't sick. I imagine someone who already was ill would have found it better than not having insurance? Perhaps someone else knows the details of how that worked.
Bridget, there is no place on earth where pure market-based healthcare is working. Profit conflicts with the wish to help.
The only broad government insurance we have is Medicare and those rates have gone up very gradually.... around 1-2% per year.
I don't understand why so many Americans now regard the government as a captive of the dark force. Government like any other human institution is as good or as bad as the individuals who run it. Of course, if you vote for leaders who hate government, then they will give you government worthy of your hate. But if you elect leaders who believe they can use government to improve people's lives, then you'll get government that provides a positive influence for us all. Insurance companies are human institutions too--Capitalistic ones. They aren't in business to provide good health care for you or your family. They are in business to make money for themselves. Their CEOs make hundreds of millions every year, paid for by your and my monthly premiums coupled with the long list of medical services and medications they refuse to cover regardless of your or my health needs. How Conservatives can conclude that insurance companies are a better choice for controlling our health care needs than a conscientious government program like Medicare, is beyond my understanding. I agree with Bernie that health care should be a national right for every citizen, not something reserved for the financially privileged.
Nobody gets health insurance if they're sick. Where does this come from? People need to fill out illness situation at time of application. They will be denied if they are sick and apply. What happens is one get's sick, loses the insurance they had either because they had to quit work or because the insurance company decided to drop them. Then can't get insurance again. So the insurance company collected all the while, and when it comes time to pay, they pay and dump the insured.
I'd like to see the opposite on employer covered insurance. But it may be to expensive as insurance is part of one's compensation package. But maybe we can raise base pay to offset the loss of insurance paid by employer. I hate that I can't leave a job I don't like and try to find another because I have to have insurance at a reasonable price. Or if I get laid off, I lose insurance or pay full price.
Do you know how much COBRA costs? It about quadruples the cost paid while working. An unemployed person won't be able to pay those prices on a measly unemployment check.
You are correct, any institution can be good or bad depending upon the people running the institution. But there is a huge difference between the government and other institutions - the government has absolute control over you, and other institutions. You have some recourse against a private institution, you have none against the government. The government can take your money, house, retirement, health care, your freedom, and your life. And all that power attracts people who want to use it to "improve people's lives". The problem is that these people have one idea what will "improve people's lives" and want to use the power of the govt to impose that idea on everyone. That's assuming such people are actually operating from altruistic motives. Many more people want to use that awesome power to collect more power and wealth for themselves. And you like Bernie, the man who has spent his entire life in politics creating the system you don't like, the man who as soon as he lost the primary dropped all of his campaign promises to support the establishment DNC, the same establishment that he has been a player in for decades. Bernie is just another politician, and an old man who knows how to fool people.
