BREAKING NEWS: Appeals court rules part of President Obama’s health care law unconsti

[C_Clayton_Jones]

And I don't think your point of view will hold up under scrutiny. But what makes a leftwinger a leftwinger is looking to big government to be nanny, protector, rescuer, and insurance policy against all evils. What makes a conservative a conservative is believing in the right of the people to choose to do what is best for them and not taking that right away from them.

What makes a conservative a conservative is adhering blindly to dogma in spite of the facts, such dogma as all government is bad or ‘the left’ advocates government involvement in all aspects of life. What the right fails to understand (among many, many other things) is that a pragmatic approach is the best approach, a blend of private and public sector – go with what works, not what only conforms to a particular political ideology.

And the best approach is a single payer system, where supplemental insurance can be bought for those who believe they need it. As noted, government isn’t getting out of healthcare, it’s far too expensive for many Americans to afford and the costs too great for a so-called ‘free market’ solution.

 

[SFC Ollie]

And I don't think your point of view will hold up under scrutiny. But what makes a leftwinger a leftwinger is looking to big government to be nanny, protector, rescuer, and insurance policy against all evils. What makes a conservative a conservative is believing in the right of the people to choose to do what is best for them and not taking that right away from them.

What makes a conservative a conservative is adhering blindly to dogma in spite of the facts, such dogma as all government is bad or ‘the left’ advocates government involvement in all aspects of life. What the right fails to understand (among many, many other things) is that a pragmatic approach is the best approach, a blend of private and public sector – go with what works, not what only conforms to a particular political ideology.

And the best approach is a single payer system, where supplemental insurance can be bought for those who believe they need it. As noted, government isn’t getting out of healthcare, it’s far too expensive for many Americans to afford and the costs too great for a so-called ‘free market’ solution.

I'm sorry which of these two plans are you advocating? It's like yes and no, you can't have them both.......

 

[Immanuel]

And I don't think your point of view will hold up under scrutiny. But what makes a leftwinger a leftwinger is looking to big government to be nanny, protector, rescuer, and insurance policy against all evils. What makes a conservative a conservative is believing in the right of the people to choose to do what is best for them and not taking that right away from them.

What makes a conservative a conservative is adhering blindly to dogma in spite of the facts, such dogma as all government is bad or ‘the left’ advocates government involvement in all aspects of life. What the right fails to understand (among many, many other things) is that a pragmatic approach is the best approach, a blend of private and public sector – go with what works, not what only conforms to a particular political ideology.

And the best approach is a single payer system, where supplemental insurance can be bought for those who believe they need it. As noted, government isn’t getting out of healthcare, it’s far too expensive for many Americans to afford and the costs too great for a so-called ‘free market’ solution.

To the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus".

Health care costs go up and up, up and up, up and up. Health care costs go up and up all through the land.

Immie

 

[Greenbeard]

There were no MRIs or CT scans when Medicare went into effect.

Indeed! Many, many treatments and technologies didn't exist when Medicare was created. The pace of advancement and change in medicine over the past half century has been staggering. Contrasting the modern medical landscape with a single professional with a black bag and a stethoscope making house calls in Mayberry--and blaming "government" for the difference--is a pretty weak analysis.

Yes, the payment system initially adopted by Medicare from the private sector of reimbursing fee-for-service at customary, prevailing and reasonable rates was bad. I'd be the first to agree that payment policy matters profoundly. But a bit more has changed on the road from Mayberry to Mayo than just the government paying for the care of the elderly.

 

[saveliberty]

There were no MRIs or CT scans when Medicare went into effect.

Indeed! Many, many treatments and technologies didn't exist when Medicare was created. The pace of advancement and change in medicine over the past half century has been staggering. Contrasting the modern medical landscape with a single professional with a black bag and a stethoscope making house calls in Mayberry--and blaming "government" for the difference--is a pretty weak analysis.

Yes, the payment system initially adopted by Medicare from the private sector of reimbursing fee-for-service at customary, prevailing and reasonable rates was bad. I'd be the first to agree that payment policy matters profoundly. But a bit more has changed on the road from Mayberry to Mayo than just the government paying for the care of the elderly.

Yet government invovlement IS the biggest and most influential difference between the two. Certificates of Need, rules and regualtions for receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, no help in limiting lawsuits, favoring large metropolitan in rates and a host of other things.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

How much did an MRI or CT scan cost in those days?

There were no MRIs or CT scans when Medicare went into effect. But a chest x-ray would run the patient about $15. Something more complicated maybe a bit more. A hospital bed was about $35/night for a semi-private room. Patients who couldn't afford their bills were set up on contracts to pay it out - at $10/month if that is all they could afford. But nobody expected healthcare for free.

I was working for a hospital the day Medicare went into effect. And from Day 1 there was abuse of the system and from that day costs began rising at an unprecedented rate and have been escalating ever since. Medicaid made it worse. And all the other stuff they've included in those programs have made healthcare unaffordable for anybody.

We need to get the federal government out of it.

Comparing an X-ray to an MRI or CT Scan is like comparing a magnifying glass to a microscope. I agree you didn't pay much for medical care but you didn't get much compared to today. Cancer survival rates today are twice what they were then. Diseases we had no treatment for then are being treated and cured.

Medical advances have come at a high cost, hundreds of billions in research, machines such as an MRI costing a million dollars or more, and hundreds of new highly trained medical professionals. One of the things that is really driving up cost is that we are developing treatments for much less common diseases. This means there're fewer people to pay the costs. These costs will continue to accelerate as we tackle more rare diseases.

Of course government adds cost to healthcare but using government as a scapegoat for all problems is counterproductive. Without government involvement in healthcare most of the medical marvels of the last half century would not be available to large segment of the population.

That's funny.

 

[clevergirl]

There were no MRIs or CT scans when Medicare went into effect.

Indeed! Many, many treatments and technologies didn't exist when Medicare was created. The pace of advancement and change in medicine over the past half century has been staggering. Contrasting the modern medical landscape with a single professional with a black bag and a stethoscope making house calls in Mayberry--and blaming "government" for the difference--is a pretty weak analysis.

Yes, the payment system initially adopted by Medicare from the private sector of reimbursing fee-for-service at customary, prevailing and reasonable rates was bad. I'd be the first to agree that payment policy matters profoundly. But a bit more has changed on the road from Mayberry to Mayo than just the government paying for the care of the elderly.

Yet government invovlement IS the biggest and most influential difference between the two. Certificates of Need, rules and regualtions for receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, no help in limiting lawsuits, favoring large metropolitan in rates and a host of other things.

There are a complexity of reasons why healthcare costs go up. Still, with regards to entitlement spending on medicare and medicaid, those costs are exponentially unexplainable when comparing to private medical costs.

One other cost, that few realize exists is that we, the US, basically subsidize prescription drug costs for much of the rest of the globe. If we socialized our medicine to the degree the UK or Canada does, we would expect the same discounts on pharma- meaning those countries, who are already sinking from their "free" medicine would have to absorb our new savings.

Republican's really did offer great solutions- interstate deregulation; flex accounts; medical co-ops; etc. These are market place ideas as opposed to nanny state inefficiencies that do nothing for real care, but do strangle economies.

 

[Foxfyre]

All good points CleverGirl.

As I posted earlier, from Day One that Medicare went into effect, we saw medical providers take advantage of government payments that would not be questioned. Until then we all got copies of our medical bills whether at the doctors office or emergency room or hospital. We could SEE charges for things we never asked for or received and would question them and they were taken off. Private insurance companies also scrutinized the bills and challenged anything that looked out of line.

Enter government medicine with artificially capped payments but unchallenged 'unnecessary medical care/treatment' and the whole system was almost immediately skewed. No longer market driven, the government determined costs and payments which were artificially low requiring medical providers/suppliers to shift costs to others driving everybody's out of pocket costs and insurance premiums higher.

Let the free market work and honest costs will be involved.

As for litigation, it just didn't happen except in cases of gross negligence. The doctor didn't order any tests or treatment that were not medically indicated. Defensive medicine was unnecessary and now that alone accounts for almost half of all medical costs outside of surgical, cancer treatment, and other unusually costly care.

Enter government medicine and more and more unnecessary tests ordered because the government would pay for them and that became the norm. A doctor who didn't order the tests would be challenged as negligent. A whole new cottage industry for the legal profession cropped up. Ambulance chasers weren't just after people involved in accidents any more but were looking for ANY possible oversight or ommission as an excuse to sue doctors and other medical professionals. Malpractice insurance went through the roof and half our costs are now for stuff that isn't medically indicated but they don't dare not give it to us.

All that would be required is some legal cover. The doctor offers the treatment or test or whatever along with his professional opinion whether it is medically indicated, the patient has the right to accept or decline, it is noted in the chart, and the doctor won't be sued for not ordering a test that isn't medically indicated via the symptoms or circumstances.

 

[Flopper]

And I don't think your point of view will hold up under scrutiny. But what makes a leftwinger a leftwinger is looking to big government to be nanny, protector, rescuer, and insurance policy against all evils. What makes a conservative a conservative is believing in the right of the people to choose to do what is best for them and not taking that right away from them.

What makes a conservative a conservative is adhering blindly to dogma in spite of the facts, such dogma as all government is bad or ‘the left’ advocates government involvement in all aspects of life. What the right fails to understand (among many, many other things) is that a pragmatic approach is the best approach, a blend of private and public sector – go with what works, not what only conforms to a particular political ideology.

And the best approach is a single payer system, where supplemental insurance can be bought for those who believe they need it. As noted, government isn’t getting out of healthcare, it’s far too expensive for many Americans to afford and the costs too great for a so-called ‘free market’ solution.

I'm sorry which of these two plans are you advocating? It's like yes and no, you can't have them both.......

A single payer system only defines how the system is financed not how services are delivered. Under a single payer system, healthcare facilities can be privately owned, thus forming a partnership between private enterprise and government.

Medical care has never been a very profit orientated business. Only 18% of our hospitals are privately owned. The reminder are government owned or non-profits. Listening to the rhetoric, you would think government posed some danger of destroying the heart of free enterprise and capitalism in the country.

 

[Flopper]

Indeed! Many, many treatments and technologies didn't exist when Medicare was created. The pace of advancement and change in medicine over the past half century has been staggering. Contrasting the modern medical landscape with a single professional with a black bag and a stethoscope making house calls in Mayberry--and blaming "government" for the difference--is a pretty weak analysis.

Yes, the payment system initially adopted by Medicare from the private sector of reimbursing fee-for-service at customary, prevailing and reasonable rates was bad. I'd be the first to agree that payment policy matters profoundly. But a bit more has changed on the road from Mayberry to Mayo than just the government paying for the care of the elderly.

Yet government invovlement IS the biggest and most influential difference between the two. Certificates of Need, rules and regualtions for receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, no help in limiting lawsuits, favoring large metropolitan in rates and a host of other things.

There are a complexity of reasons why healthcare costs go up. Still, with regards to entitlement spending on medicare and medicaid, those costs are exponentially unexplainable when comparing to private medical costs.

One other cost, that few realize exists is that we, the US, basically subsidize prescription drug costs for much of the rest of the globe. If we socialized our medicine to the degree the UK or Canada does, we would expect the same discounts on pharma- meaning those countries, who are already sinking from their "free" medicine would have to absorb our new savings.

Republican's really did offer great solutions- interstate deregulation; flex accounts; medical co-ops; etc. These are market place ideas as opposed to nanny state inefficiencies that do nothing for real care, but do strangle economies.

Your're right about drugs. Brand name drugs bought outside the US run 1/4 to 1/2 what we pay in the US. These are the same drugs you buy in the US, often manufactured in the same facility. Thanks to lobbyist efforts, the government has seen fit to protect the drug companies by banning importation. Obama signed an executive order allowing limited importation by individuals. There's legislation in congress and pressure on the white house to stop even this.

We are paying for the research and development cost of drugs for whole world.

 

[Foxfyre]

Single payer is control of choices, options, quality, access that was NEVER intended to be a role of the Federal government in a nation that values unalienable rights and considers those first above all other concerns. Socialism, facism, and Marxism all presumably put the needs of the most at the forefront and do not recognize unalienable rights. And those eventually create such misery that they transition to dictatorships or totalitarian governments so that the government retains control.

 

[Flopper]

Single payer is control of choices, options, quality, access that was NEVER intended to be a role of the Federal government in a nation that values unalienable rights and considers those first above all other concerns. Socialism, facism, and Marxism all presumably put the needs of the most at the forefront and do not recognize unalienable rights. And those eventually create such misery that they transition to dictatorships or totalitarian governments so that the government retains control.

Seems like I've heard this before. Single payer eliminates the insurance companies, that's it. Most people today don't really have a choice of carrier. Because of costs, they have to accept whoever their employer selects. Once on the plan, most people are restricted again by cost to a select network of providers.

As long as we keep arguing about whether government or insurance companies are to be the carrier, focus is drawn away from the major cause of high healthcare cost, the way we delivery healthcare in America.

 

[Foxfyre]

Single payer is control of choices, options, quality, access that was NEVER intended to be a role of the Federal government in a nation that values unalienable rights and considers those first above all other concerns. Socialism, facism, and Marxism all presumably put the needs of the most at the forefront and do not recognize unalienable rights. And those eventually create such misery that they transition to dictatorships or totalitarian governments so that the government retains control.

Seems like I've heard this before. Single payer eliminates the insurance companies, that's it. Most people today don't really have a choice of carrier. Because of costs, they have to accept whoever their employer selects. Once on the plan, most people are restricted again by cost to a select network of providers.

As long as we keep arguing about whether government or insurance companies are to be the carrier, focus is drawn away from the major cause of high healthcare cost, the way we delivery healthcare in America.

When government doesn't screw up the free market system--before government screwed up the free market system for healthcare--insurance companies had to compete with each other to attract policy holders. Make the premiums unaffordable and the company goes out of business. And there was strong incentive among medical providers and suppliers to also compete so that the people would use them and the insurance companies would authorize them.

Make the hospitals provide free medical care to those who can't or won't pay or provide free healthcare courtesy of the taxpayer, however, and the free market system goes out the window along with our freedoms, choices, options, opportunities, and control over our own destinies.

 

[dblack]

As long as we keep arguing about whether government or insurance companies are to be the carrier, focus is drawn away from the major cause of high healthcare cost, the way we delivery healthcare in America.

How we pay for health care IS the major cause of high healthcare costs. Over-insured consumers fail to provide any downward price pressure. In one sense I agree with your point, it doesn't really matter whether health care consumers are over-insured through private corporations, or state-supported. Either approach drives price inflation the same way.

 

[Immanuel]

What makes a conservative a conservative is adhering blindly to dogma in spite of the facts, such dogma as all government is bad or ‘the left’ advocates government involvement in all aspects of life. What the right fails to understand (among many, many other things) is that a pragmatic approach is the best approach, a blend of private and public sector – go with what works, not what only conforms to a particular political ideology.

And the best approach is a single payer system, where supplemental insurance can be bought for those who believe they need it. As noted, government isn’t getting out of healthcare, it’s far too expensive for many Americans to afford and the costs too great for a so-called ‘free market’ solution.

I'm sorry which of these two plans are you advocating? It's like yes and no, you can't have them both.......

A single payer system only defines how the system is financed not how services are delivered. Under a single payer system, healthcare facilities can be privately owned, thus forming a partnership between private enterprise and government.

Medical care has never been a very profit orientated business. Only 18% of our hospitals are privately owned. The reminder are government owned or non-profits. Listening to the rhetoric, you would think government posed some danger of destroying the heart of free enterprise and capitalism in the country.

Single payer is government control with zero competition.

That means the government can charge you whatever the hell they want for your health insurance and there is not a damned thing you can do about it.

They get their revenues by payroll taxes? They simply raise the payroll tax.

Revenue from employer premiums? Raise the premiums.

There would be no way for us to control our costs except the fallacious threat of voting them out of office and they will laugh in your faces every time you make that idiotic threat.

Immie

 

[Immanuel]

Single payer is control of choices, options, quality, access that was NEVER intended to be a role of the Federal government in a nation that values unalienable rights and considers those first above all other concerns. Socialism, facism, and Marxism all presumably put the needs of the most at the forefront and do not recognize unalienable rights. And those eventually create such misery that they transition to dictatorships or totalitarian governments so that the government retains control.

Seems like I've heard this before. Single payer eliminates the insurance companies, that's it. Most people today don't really have a choice of carrier. Because of costs, they have to accept whoever their employer selects. Once on the plan, most people are restricted again by cost to a select network of providers.

As long as we keep arguing about whether government or insurance companies are to be the carrier, focus is drawn away from the major cause of high healthcare cost, the way we delivery healthcare in America.

At least the employer, who is generally looking out for themselves as well, can choose another carrier if the one they chose before is not doing the job.

Immie

 

[Conservative]

Without government involvement in healthcare most of the medical marvels of the last half century would not be available to large segment of the population.

link to credible source for this information please???

 

[SFC Ollie]

Without government involvement in healthcare most of the medical marvels of the last half century would not be available to large segment of the population.

link to credible source for this information please???

There is no such link, the rope he used to pull that out of his ass broke....

 

[saveliberty]

Oh come on, everybody wants to buy a multimillion dollar piece of equipment and then not allow people to use it.

 

[Greenbeard]

Yet government invovlement IS the biggest and most influential difference between the two.

Oh come on, everybody wants to buy a multimillion dollar piece of equipment and then not allow people to use it.

Really? You sure the biggest difference in input costs and health spending between the single doctor with the black bag and the facility housing "multimillion dollar pieces of equipment" is...government involvement?

There are a complexity of reasons why healthcare costs go up. Still, with regards to entitlement spending on medicare and medicaid, those costs are exponentially unexplainable when comparing to private medical costs.