Another question for Government Run Healthcare Supporters...

[Care4all]

well, I don't think it is anything but the SAME OLD SAME OLD....

This is not a government run health care plan, this is a Health INSURANCE plan, which IS exactly what we have now....

This is NOT Universal Health CARE.....run by the government such as Medicare, this is a PRIVATE SECTOR GIFT HORSE where hundreds of billions of dollars each year goes to merely a middle man that provides NOTHING to you when it comes to your health care....but it seems THIS IS WHAT conservatives want...(the private for profit insurance companies calling the SHOTS)....NOT a TRUE health care plan where excessive profits by the DO NOTHING middle man are taken out imo.

This govt insurance plan is bound to fail...because the for profit, middle man insurance companies who collect 1/3 of ALL THE TRILLIONS spent on healthcare each and every year, for merely pushing paper.

And we sit here and wonder why things are so expensive? We are paying 33% more for our healthcare just for some pencil pushers who do nothing in the area of providing us the actual health care....to take their profits....something is wrong here...

I realize it is scary to admit the TRUTH on all of this, because then the solutions become even scarier, but the TRUTH of the matter is precisely what I stated above...if your actual bill with the doctor came to $2000 for the actual services rendered then you will be paying $3000 for it so that the insurance companies can get their CUT.

Care

 

[toomuchtime_]

well, I don't think it is anything but the SAME OLD SAME OLD....

This is not a government run health care plan, this is a Health INSURANCE plan, which IS exactly what we have now....

This is NOT Universal Health CARE.....run by the government such as Medicare, this is a PRIVATE SECTOR GIFT HORSE where hundreds of billions of dollars each year goes to merely a middle man that provides NOTHING to you when it comes to your health care....but it seems THIS IS WHAT conservatives want...(the private for profit insurance companies calling the SHOTS)....NOT a TRUE health care plan where excessive profits by the DO NOTHING middle man are taken out imo.

This govt insurance plan is bound to fail...because the for profit, middle man insurance companies who collect 1/3 of ALL THE TRILLIONS spent on healthcare each and every year, for merely pushing paper.

And we sit here and wonder why things are so expensive? We are paying 33% more for our healthcare just for some pencil pushers who do nothing in the area of providing us the actual health care....to take their profits....something is wrong here...

I realize it is scary to admit the TRUTH on all of this, because then the solutions become even scarier, but the TRUTH of the matter is precisely what I stated above...if your actual bill with the doctor came to $2000 for the actual services rendered then you will be paying $3000 for it so that the insurance companies can get their CUT.

Care

We have always had non profit private insurance companies in the US, some quite large and many very well run, but on average, they charge the same a for profit insurance companies for the same services. If removing the profit motives as Pelosi, Obama and others claim will lower health insurance costs, why haven't the non profit private insurance companies taken over the market? Clearly, when Obama promises you that a public plan will keep the insurance companies "honest" by passing on lower overhead costs to you as savings, he is being dishonest with you, because if that were possible, the non profit insurance companies would have done so decades ago. The decades old competition between non profit and for profit insurance companies in the US shows the benefits Obama promises the public plan will deliver to you are no more real than the profits Bernie Madoff promised to those who trusted him.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, since I only got 2 responses to my last question from Government run health care supporters let me try another question...

If 2 people were in line to get a liver transplant, one is here legally and has a job paying taxes toward health care costs and the other one is here illegally and does not work... providing that both are a good match for the liver, who should get the liver?

Well, if neither have a real good Health Care plan at present, neither gets it. Both just die. If we had a real Health Care System, the citizen obviously gets it, for he is automatically in the program. The illegal, since he is here illegaly, and not working, is non-existant as far as the government program would be concerned.

 

[Old Rocks]

People, there are many nations out there delivering Health Care to 100% of their citizens, at half the cost, per citizen, that we do here. They have longer life expectancies, healthier old ages, and a much lower infant mortality than we do.

Results are what counts, all the rest of yapping is just bullshit to protect parasites.

 

[Zoom-boing]

Well, since I only got 2 responses to my last question from Government run health care supporters let me try another question...

If 2 people were in line to get a liver transplant, one is here legally and has a job paying taxes toward health care costs and the other one is here illegally and does not work... providing that both are a good match for the liver, who should get the liver?

Well, if neither have a real good Health Care plan at present, neither gets it. Both just die. If we had a real Health Care System, the citizen obviously gets it, for he is automatically in the program. The illegal, since he is here illegaly, and not working, is non-existant as far as the government program would be concerned.

Where do you come up with this shit?

If the government really wanted to keep illegals from being covered why did the Dems vote no on Rep. Heller's amendment?

Republicans, however, point out that the Democrats, by refusing to accept the Heller amendment, would deny health agencies from conducting simple database checks to verify citizenship. Many states give illegals driver licenses, which will be sufficient to get free health care under the plan.

Critics also contend that millions of illegals who already have counterfeit Social Security cards or other fraudulent documents. There is no enforcement mechanism in the legislation, experts say, to prevent illegals who use fake IDs to obtain jobs from also obtaining taxpayer-subsidized health insurance.

GOP representatives introduced the amendment to provide a way to weed out non-citizens from the program.

A description of the amendment on Heller's Web site state it would "better screen applicants for subsidized health care to ensure they are actually citizens or otherwise entitled to it."

The Web post added, "The underlying bill is insufficient for the purpose of preventing illegal aliens from accessing the bill’s proposed benefits, as it does not provide mechanisms allowing those administering the program to ensure illegal aliens cannot access taxpayer-funded subsidies and benefits."

The Heller amendment would have required that individuals applying for the public health care option would be subject to two systems used to verify immigration status already in use by the government: The Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.

The two systems cross-reference Social Security numbers and employment information to establish whether an individual is a U.S. citizen.

Newsmax.com - Obama Health Plan to Cover 12 Million Illegals

 

[Care4all]

well, I don't think it is anything but the SAME OLD SAME OLD....

This is not a government run health care plan, this is a Health INSURANCE plan, which IS exactly what we have now....

This is NOT Universal Health CARE.....run by the government such as Medicare, this is a PRIVATE SECTOR GIFT HORSE where hundreds of billions of dollars each year goes to merely a middle man that provides NOTHING to you when it comes to your health care....but it seems THIS IS WHAT conservatives want...(the private for profit insurance companies calling the SHOTS)....NOT a TRUE health care plan where excessive profits by the DO NOTHING middle man are taken out imo.

This govt insurance plan is bound to fail...because the for profit, middle man insurance companies who collect 1/3 of ALL THE TRILLIONS spent on healthcare each and every year, for merely pushing paper.

And we sit here and wonder why things are so expensive? We are paying 33% more for our healthcare just for some pencil pushers who do nothing in the area of providing us the actual health care....to take their profits....something is wrong here...

I realize it is scary to admit the TRUTH on all of this, because then the solutions become even scarier, but the TRUTH of the matter is precisely what I stated above...if your actual bill with the doctor came to $2000 for the actual services rendered then you will be paying $3000 for it so that the insurance companies can get their CUT.

Care

We have always had non profit private insurance companies in the US, some quite large and many very well run, but on average, they charge the same a for profit insurance companies for the same services. If removing the profit motives as Pelosi, Obama and others claim will lower health insurance costs, why haven't the non profit private insurance companies taken over the market? Clearly, when Obama promises you that a public plan will keep the insurance companies "honest" by passing on lower overhead costs to you as savings, he is being dishonest with you, because if that were possible, the non profit insurance companies would have done so decades ago. The decades old competition between non profit and for profit insurance companies in the US shows the benefits Obama promises the public plan will deliver to you are no more real than the profits Bernie Madoff promised to those who trusted him.

well damnit, then something is wrong with this picture....nonprofits should be less expensive than for profit insurance plans.... where is the money going if they are charging the same and one hands the profits to shareholders...where does the non profit put there money?

It is SUPPOSE to be back in to the nonprofit...meaning, they reduce the price of health insurance to their customers or they INCREASE their benefits to the customers, the money isn't left hanging there, IT MUST according to LAW be put back in to the Non Profit in helping to achieve the non profit's goal???

I am just dumb founded in how this entire healthcare industry does NOT follow any of the general presumptions about Capitalism and how capitalism should work!

 

[toomuchtime_]

well, I don't think it is anything but the SAME OLD SAME OLD....

This is not a government run health care plan, this is a Health INSURANCE plan, which IS exactly what we have now....

This is NOT Universal Health CARE.....run by the government such as Medicare, this is a PRIVATE SECTOR GIFT HORSE where hundreds of billions of dollars each year goes to merely a middle man that provides NOTHING to you when it comes to your health care....but it seems THIS IS WHAT conservatives want...(the private for profit insurance companies calling the SHOTS)....NOT a TRUE health care plan where excessive profits by the DO NOTHING middle man are taken out imo.

This govt insurance plan is bound to fail...because the for profit, middle man insurance companies who collect 1/3 of ALL THE TRILLIONS spent on healthcare each and every year, for merely pushing paper.

And we sit here and wonder why things are so expensive? We are paying 33% more for our healthcare just for some pencil pushers who do nothing in the area of providing us the actual health care....to take their profits....something is wrong here...

I realize it is scary to admit the TRUTH on all of this, because then the solutions become even scarier, but the TRUTH of the matter is precisely what I stated above...if your actual bill with the doctor came to $2000 for the actual services rendered then you will be paying $3000 for it so that the insurance companies can get their CUT.

Care

We have always had non profit private insurance companies in the US, some quite large and many very well run, but on average, they charge the same a for profit insurance companies for the same services. If removing the profit motives as Pelosi, Obama and others claim will lower health insurance costs, why haven't the non profit private insurance companies taken over the market? Clearly, when Obama promises you that a public plan will keep the insurance companies "honest" by passing on lower overhead costs to you as savings, he is being dishonest with you, because if that were possible, the non profit insurance companies would have done so decades ago. The decades old competition between non profit and for profit insurance companies in the US shows the benefits Obama promises the public plan will deliver to you are no more real than the profits Bernie Madoff promised to those who trusted him.

well damnit, then something is wrong with this picture....nonprofits should be less expensive than for profit insurance plans.... where is the money going if they are charging the same and one hands the profits to shareholders...where does the non profit put there money?

It is SUPPOSE to be back in to the nonprofit...meaning, they reduce the price of health insurance to their customers or they INCREASE their benefits to the customers, the money isn't left hanging there, IT MUST according to LAW be put back in to the Non Profit in helping to achieve the non profit's goal???

I am just dumb founded in how this entire healthcare industry does NOT follow any of the general presumptions about Capitalism and how capitalism should work!

It does seem counter intuitive, but even in normal economic times, profit margins for health insurance companies only run about 3.5% to 4.5% of total revenues, significantly less than profit margins for manufacturing companies, so I'm guessing that the pressure to show profits has led to greater internal efficiencies in for profit companies than in non profit companies. Perhaps the corporate culture within a for profit insurance company allows them to pressure employees to be more productive more than the corporate culture within a non profit insurance company does.

Whatever the explanation is, the fact that non profits have not been able to achieve real savings for consumers despite the lack of a profit motive and despite the fact they often have lower overhead costs clearly demonstrates that there is no reason to think a public plan will do any better. Add to this the fact that many quite honestly and sincerely continue to believe a public plan will do better than non profits despite the evidence, and it is clear we do not understand the issues, concepts or have adequate access to data to make intelligent, informed decisions about how to modify our health care/health insurance system now to achieve better health outcomes and better outcomes for our economy.

Instead of trying to rush an enormously expensive and hastily contrived plan through Congress before the 2010 campaign season begins, we should be appointing a blue ribbon panel, perhaps like the 911 Commission or the panel Reagan appointed to study ways to fix SS, that could study and compare outcomes and costs for all the ways in which we might improve health outcomes and rein in costs so that Congress could begin to construct a plan or plans based on organized facts and solid analyses instead of on partisan propaganda and ideological slogans.

 

[Marin]

Well, since I only got 2 responses to my last question from Government run health care supporters let me try another question...

If 2 people were in line to get a liver transplant, one is here legally and has a job paying taxes toward health care costs and the other one is here illegally and does not work... providing that both are a good match for the liver, who should get the liver?

The hard working American paying taxes....The other is to be shipped back to wherever the hell he is from.

 

[garyd]

How many times do I have to say it? The current system has nothing to do with free enterprise and everything to do with keeping trial lawyers, bureaucrats, and politiicans in the money. You asked where the money went now you know.

 

[Harry Dresden]

i live in germany, but i am no expert on health care, so i can not give you valuable information. as i am lucky to be without major or minor health problems i have not yet run into any problems yet.

in germany there are two options, private health care and what you would call government run healthcare, i think, which is mandatory if you don't use the private option.

it is a two class system. mostly rich people have the option for private health care, they are the ones who will not have to wait long for an appointment with a doctor. because the docs will get more money from privately insured patients. this is a major source for the problems, as health care is more and more run like a business which has to be profitable and not as a service which cares for the health of the people.

there are a lot of problems with our health care system, but it is not as bad as opponents of a government run health care system in the US paint it to be by cherry picking bad examples. we don't have as extreme examples of bad health care as the US system has to offer.

keep in mind, those are just my observations without having had the bad luck to have encountered the devil in detail.

but the bolded paragraph points out a very telling ....POINT....

grin, yeah. several points could be made from that paragraph.

what did you see?

what i see is what has happened here....they have to make some kind of profit to remain viable...a few decades ago NO ONE bitched about health care or the health system....now its a problem....i think there is just too many people here to simply do what all these people want.....and yea the cherry picking does happen....but the pro-NHC people here cherry pick all the negative things in the current system and cherry pick all the good things in other countries systems....and says "see their system is better"....when it seems to me they ALL have problems and good points.....

 

[L.K.Eder]

but the bolded paragraph points out a very telling ....POINT....

grin, yeah. several points could be made from that paragraph.

what did you see?

what i see is what has happened here....they have to make some kind of profit to remain viable...a few decades ago NO ONE bitched about health care or the health system....now its a problem....i think there is just too many people here to simply do what all these people want.....and yea the cherry picking does happen....but the pro-NHC people here cherry pick all the negative things in the current system and cherry pick all the good things in other countries systems....and says "see their system is better"....when it seems to me they ALL have problems and good points.....

yeah that's right about the cherry-picking.
here the system runs out of money, so they cut corners everywhere, or try anything to make it profitable. the result is worse health care.

 

[editec]

Let it bleed.

America is better off allowing the market driven HC payment system to fail entirely.

 

[garyd]

And why does it run out of money? Same reason the government run system doesn't ahve enough to treat every one. It's called the law of supply and demand which as the Soviets found out much to their chagrin still works even when you go to great links to stamp it out. No place in Europe now has anything one can honestly say is universal health care. At least if you take universal to mean everyone regardless of age.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

I know, I just wanted to see who exactly he thought was going to run it?

I suspect spiderman tuba is a troll and you probably won't get an answer. But I could be mistaken.

ummmm, you've been here a couple of months and he has been a member for 5 years and you question trolling?

Any comments on the gvt employee health care choices that he has linked?

See, I don't see this as a government plan AT ALL...it's a "middle man plan", it's an Insurance Company's Dream Plan!!!

I disagree with it because the middle man is still involved and dictating my health care, with no decisions on my part, and even then, doesn't pay it....final bill $2053.00 that we have to pay, and our health insurance policy is $800 a month for the 2 of us, of which we pay $350 and his company pays the rest as a benefit.....insurance didn't pay a dime with a year or two worth of fighting and recoding and refiling and appeals... (because of a "code error" when the hospital filed my claim with them....long story! )

My husband and I have one choice of health care, with one insurance company and my husband works for a huge corporation who used to at least offer a choice of 2 insurance companies to choose from, which was also crap. I am grateful that his Company pays $450 of the bill each month, BUT STILL...what kind of choice do I have?

And how will those choices improve under Obama's plan? I have many questions on such...

I personally would rather see the for profit, health insurance companies go by the wayside, but of course, this is from my own and matt's personal experience...i do understand others may have a greater choice than us right now...but i would venture to say that many people don't.

And as far as the illegal alien thingy,

they are NOT eligible. It says so right in the house plan, I saw this on Cnn the other day...they showed the republicans saying such and then they showed the wording in the Democratic health Care plan that showed that Illegals are not eligible.

but just because they are not eligible, does not mean that this person would not get a liver at some point, if he could get on a donor list somehow....we pay for anyone who does not have insurance's emergency and life threatening healthcare as it is...it is against the Law for hospitals to not care for them, or anyone, in a critical and emergency situation.

Those of us insured, pay for these costs that the hospitals incur through higher insurance premiums, or if taxes reimburse the hospitals for some of it, through our taxes.

No illegal is being denied NOW....we are paying for it NOW....and it looks like we will continue to pay for it with higher insurance premiums if they are NOT allowed to BUY IN TO a plan they can afford....as the Dems say the bill says.

So, personally, if they are going to do some plan where people who do not work for companies that supply health insurance, they could buy in to a plan that they could afford...the gvt plan or better yet, a private NON PROFIT COOP plan...then THEY WOULD be contributing some...more than they are now, for the cost of their own health care...and this seems like a good thing, no? Then we would not have to pay as high premiums to cover the cost of their care as much, no?

I just don't know...

I think PROFIT has to be taken out of this....people can still be paid well, even if it is a nonprofit...the big wigs will still get their multi million dollar salaries in a nonprofit...just what profit they do make come year end, they have to reinvest it in to the company instead of giving the profits to a share holder...

I dunno I dunno I dunno....

on ALL OF THIS!

Care

Being a member doesn't make someone any less a troll. Case in point, He's been here five years, I've been here for a few months. And from where I sit I've been five times as active on the boards this month than he has.

What he listed are programs in place NOW. All that would change under Obamacare.

Do you have a problem with the govt. forcing people to purchase health insurance?

 

[editec]

well, I don't think it is anything but the SAME OLD SAME OLD....

This is not a government run health care plan, this is a Health INSURANCE plan, which IS exactly what we have now....

This is NOT Universal Health CARE.....run by the government such as Medicare, this is a PRIVATE SECTOR GIFT HORSE where hundreds of billions of dollars each year goes to merely a middle man that provides NOTHING to you when it comes to your health care....but it seems THIS IS WHAT conservatives want...(the private for profit insurance companies calling the SHOTS)....NOT a TRUE health care plan where excessive profits by the DO NOTHING middle man are taken out imo.

This govt insurance plan is bound to fail...because the for profit, middle man insurance companies who collect 1/3 of ALL THE TRILLIONS spent on healthcare each and every year, for merely pushing paper.

And we sit here and wonder why things are so expensive? We are paying 33% more for our healthcare just for some pencil pushers who do nothing in the area of providing us the actual health care....to take their profits....something is wrong here...

I realize it is scary to admit the TRUTH on all of this, because then the solutions become even scarier, but the TRUTH of the matter is precisely what I stated above...if your actual bill with the doctor came to $2000 for the actual services rendered then you will be paying $3000 for it so that the insurance companies can get their CUT.

Care

We have always had non profit private insurance companies in the US, some quite large and many very well run, but on average, they charge the same a for profit insurance companies for the same services. If removing the profit motives as Pelosi, Obama and others claim will lower health insurance costs, why haven't the non profit private insurance companies taken over the market? Clearly, when Obama promises you that a public plan will keep the insurance companies "honest" by passing on lower overhead costs to you as savings, he is being dishonest with you, because if that were possible, the non profit insurance companies would have done so decades ago. The decades old competition between non profit and for profit insurance companies in the US shows the benefits Obama promises the public plan will deliver to you are no more real than the profits Bernie Madoff promised to those who trusted him.

YOu ask why not-for-profits went down?

That's actually a great question.

ARe you familiar with the concept of cherry-picking?

If you're really interested in the answer to this, I'll take the time to explain how Blue Cross and Blue Shield (which started out as NFPs) were wrecked by private insurance companies which came AFTER BC/BS invented the concept of health insurance.

It's actually very simple.

BSBS took everybody and so the young supported the old, the healthy supported the sickly.

Private insur5ance companies chery picked the health clients leaving the sickly in BC/BS.

And no matter where the medium was in price\ing they'd cherry pick the healthier clients over and over again until BC/BS was left with the most expensive clients.

It's be easier to show you graphically, but I don't know how to post a sketch that I could create to show you.

Imagine a verticle line the x axis is age of clients and the y acess is typical costs of clients.

Naturally older clients cost more than young ones, right?

Find the mean on that graph of age and costs.

Now imagine offering the healthier(younger) customers on that graph lower cost insurance (which you can do since you're jettisoned the older sicker side by not offering them insrurance).

Incidently, when this proocess first started (in the late 50s early 60s) the cost of HC was so low that they were really offering it as an incentive to sell WHOLE LIFE insurance policies.

Destroying NFP HC companies was merely something they did to sell more life insurance plans.

Anyway, that's how it happened.

 

[GHook93]

I suspect spiderman tuba is a troll and you probably won't get an answer. But I could be mistaken.

??? I already answered it. If you pick the Blue Cross option - Blue Cross runs your plan. If you pick the Humana option, then they run your plan. Isn't that a little obvious?

Here's the rub... I do not want nor need health insurance.

LOL, you don't want nor need it until you get hurt or sick!

You could be walking down the street and get hit by a car, in which its your fault (meaning the drivers auto insurance is going to pay dick). Ambulance comes, rushed to the ER, X rayed, Cat scan, emergency medical procedure, medicine, nurse help and a week in the hospital. That little transaction could cost well over $100K! I bet if this happened you would rethink your "I don't need or want health insurance" stance!

 

[GHook93]

liver splitting is done routinely.

LK,

You don't live in America correct? Do you live in a country with government run healthcare?

If I have this correct please enlighten us to your experience within this system? What the majority of people think! How long you wait!

Most here never experienced anything but the US system!

i live in germany, but i am no expert on health care, so i can not give you valuable information. as i am lucky to be without major or minor health problems i have not yet run into any problems yet.

in germany there are two options, private health care and what you would call government run healthcare, i think, which is mandatory if you don't use the private option.

it is a two class system. mostly rich people have the option for private health care, they are the ones who will not have to wait long for an appointment with a doctor. because the docs will get more money from privately insured patients. this is a major source for the problems, as health care is more and more run like a business which has to be profitable and not as a service which cares for the health of the people.

there are a lot of problems with our health care system, but it is not as bad as opponents of a government run health care system in the US paint it to be by cherry picking bad examples. we don't have as extreme examples of bad health care as the US system has to offer.

keep in mind, those are just my observations without having had the bad luck to have encountered the devil in detail.

You know I actually don't think that is a bad system at all. Probably no employer sponsored plans, so the business (esp small businesses) aren't burden by health insurance costs. The rich get to keep their health care, supercede the line and get better health care if they pay for it! Everyone else including the middle class gets state provided healthcare!

Maybe Obamalama should counter the defactors who use Canada and UK as examples of bad state run healthcare and point to Germany as an example!

 

[Lonestar_logic]

??? I already answered it. If you pick the Blue Cross option - Blue Cross runs your plan. If you pick the Humana option, then they run your plan. Isn't that a little obvious?

Here's the rub... I do not want nor need health insurance.

LOL, you don't want nor need it until you get hurt or sick!

You could be walking down the street and get hit by a car, in which its your fault (meaning the drivers auto insurance is going to pay dick). Ambulance comes, rushed to the ER, X rayed, Cat scan, emergency medical procedure, medicine, nurse help and a week in the hospital. That little transaction could cost well over $100K! I bet if this happened you would rethink your "I don't need or want health insurance" stance!

I've been hurt numerous times( former bullrider) and I've had children( three of them all raised to maturity) that got hurt and who gpt sick. But I've always been able to pay my medical bills and I've never had health insurance.

If 80 percent of Americans are happy with their healthcare then why the hell do we need this massive reform?

 

[GHook93]

My point in this whole thing is that it is orchestrated in such a way that eventually it will be a single payer system (US Gov) with how all of the rules are written. That is how it has been designed.

Well duh! Obamalama and the Democrats wanted European style healthcare. For starters it would insure (no pun intended) many more votes for years to come and the votes they would lose probably wouldn't vote for them anyways! They know from Hillarycare that they can shove it down our throats, so they come with step A, move to step B and finalize it will step C!

 

[Care4all]

My point in this whole thing is that it is orchestrated in such a way that eventually it will be a single payer system (US Gov) with how all of the rules are written. That is how it has been designed.

Well duh! Obamalama and the Democrats wanted European style healthcare. For starters it would insure (no pun intended) many more votes for years to come and the votes they would lose probably wouldn't vote for them anyways! They know from Hillarycare that they can shove it down our throats, so they come with step A, move to step B and finalize it will step C!

why would it insure them a ton of votes if it is not what the voters want?

Or is it what the American citizens want??? Thus it will give them more votes?

Are you against it because it will give them more votes???