Describe your ideal health care policy.

The problem is that medical care costs...a lot. The bad news is that 5% of the population uses 50% of the medical system, and the last 3-years of life uses about 25% of the medical system. The simplest way to balance costs is to budget/ration medical care.

[I recall one GOP whine is that 90+ year olds don't get organ transplants under UHC. I agree with that, some rationing is needed, but "who" makes the live-die decisions? "death panels?"]

We need death panels. Too many people abuse their own bodies for 60 years and then consider themselves entitled to the same kind of care NASA astronauts get.

Nobody is entitled to immortality on the public dime, the insurance dime or the medical care industry's dime.

If you want world class end of life care pay as you go.
 
My idea of an ideal health insurance policy:

(1) $100.00 per month per individual. $150.00 per month for a family plan.
(2) No pre-existing condition clause.
(3) No deductible.
(4) Prescriptions included with health insurance. No out of pocket for prescriptions.
(5) Must pay into a health insurance policy for 6 months before any coverage is provided.
(6) Insurance pays full cost for any hospitalization, surgery, medical tests or procedures.
(7) No life-time cap on coverage.
(8) Cannot be dropped from the policy except for non-payment of monthly cost of policy.
(9) A child can remain on the parents policy until the age of 23 if a full-time student. Will remain on the policy until age 18 if not enrolled full-time in school.
(10) Preventive medicine coverage that includes immunizations for those needing immunizations.

This is my idea of what a health care program should be. You pay for your own coverage or you don't get coverage. Absolutely no government control of insurance or insurance administration. Government's only role is to ensure compliance by the insurance companies. Nothing else.



This is the health insurance equivalent of saying that your ideal car is a Ferrari Testarossa, but you only want to pay $10,000 for it.
 
My ideal health care plan would be one where unicorns roam the fields, where all the children of the world hold hands and say 'kon ni chi wa' and 'Dobrý deń', everyone gets ponies and of course we all profess our love of Islam...
 
An arugula garden has got to fit into that somewhere.
 
The best I ever had was about 20 years ago.
It cost about 1/4 what it does now, prescriptions were $4.00 for any drug.
 
My ideal healthcare plan is to live my entire life without ever spending a single day in the hospital and leaving this world with every body part I came into it with.
 
The problem is that medical care costs...a lot. The bad news is that 5% of the population uses 50% of the medical system, and the last 3-years of life uses about 25% of the medical system. The simplest way to balance costs is to budget/ration medical care.

[I recall one GOP whine is that 90+ year olds don't get organ transplants under UHC. I agree with that, some rationing is needed, but "who" makes the live-die decisions? "death panels?"]

We need death panels. Too many people abuse their own bodies for 60 years and then consider themselves entitled to the same kind of care NASA astronauts get.

Nobody is entitled to immortality on the public dime, the insurance dime or the medical care industry's dime.

If you want world class end of life care pay as you go.

Death panels....seriously?
I've known enough people who have taken care of themselves but experienced a catastrophic affliction due to genetic pre-disposition.
 
Death panels....seriously?
I've known enough people who have taken care of themselves but experienced a catastrophic affliction due to genetic pre-disposition.

We already have death panels, we call them health insurance companies. Or we call it Medicare, or we call it our spouse who decides when to pull the plug.

Without death panels there is no end to the amount of money an "entitled" person and the medical industry can conspire to charge up on end of life care.

So unless you have infinite resources to spend on your own end of life care we as a society need to set standards that balance quality of life and even productivity against mounting costs for diminishing returns.

It's not like we don't have a population bomb looming on the horizon.

I hate to sound like a shithead, but "genetic predisposition" is God's way of saying that he is your death panel.
 
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Social medicine does'nt work... it has'nt worked anywhere else

And your system has worked? Most western countries have a mixture of both. All I do know, is that every country bitches about their health system.

At the end of the day it doesn't come down to a 'hand's off government' approach or the 'socialised' approach or a mixture of both. What it comes down to is that there are not enough healthcare professionals to go around.

All each system is trying to do is take from A to give to B, which then puts A under pressure. A gets some back from B, which puts B under pressure. It is a never ending merrygoround...
 
Madeline, that sounds like a good deal on the PPO! My wife's new job with a pharmaceutical company now gives her better insurance than I have even though I have been with a company seven years so I think I understand.

I feel if we just allow hospitals to bill the government for their services at the end of the year costs will rise due to the human tendency towards corruption. Government workers will also not have the same incentive as a private insurance company to inspect the paperwork.

Fraud and error are certainly a problem, Toronado but they occur because the disincentives for prevention are absent. Many a hospital and an MD are over-billing because they believe the Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates are too low (and they might be). The problem cannot be 100% eliminated, but we can do better. Far better....and the inefficiencies of having one MD pay a billing clerk or clerks $1,000 to master the billing codes and procedures of 1,001 different insurers is pure waste IMO.
 
Similar to the VA, considered by many to be the best system in the world.

To begin with, they start off with a data base where every single illness and drug treatment are entered. From that, we can know what is effective and what isn't with data pulled directly from real cases.

Insurance companies are there to make money. They would never invest in something like this and Republicans don't want them too. Because their goal is to gut the American economy and squeeze out every cent the can. It's not like they hide it.

Republicans have convinced the American People that something that actually helps American citizens is "socialism" and should be stopped. So I want a health care system that helps Americans and not just lines the pockets of a greedy few. A national data base is the place to start. The other is a public option.

I agree 100%. Nationalize the private health insurance industry and essentially eliminate it. Providers bill direct, on one billing code and procedure, and bullshit like cost-shifting ends.

A thing costs what it cost, not the contract price +/- billings errors, delays, negotiations, overbilling, claw-backs, etc. Our system at present is crazy.

Ever wonder why one hospital stay generates 1,001 pages of bills and a band aid costs $25? This is one reason why -- it's the irrational outcome of an irrational system.
 
I dont really have time to line mine out as well as OP did, but to me the ideal system is a private industriy where the Gov't is hands off...maybe some oversight, but let the private sector take care of itself.

In other words If I am not on the governments payroll, they need to leave me the heck alone.

Social medicine does'nt work... it has'nt worked anywhere else, so what gives us the idea it will work for us? Guess thats why people come from all over the world to seek HC here :eusa_eh:

No quick solutions really.... but what they rammed thru last March was a joke!


Oh... one more thing.... if your not a citizen, you go home to get your healthcare (except in extreme emergencies)
I work in the medical industry and it is appauling how many people are here illegally and we cater to them hand and foot. While American citizens wait in line behind them in E.R.'s -- thats just not right.

I agree with deporting the ill or injured but movable uninsured non-citizen, The Infidel. I do not agree with "leaving the government out of health care". You have an unduly rosey image of private for-profit insurers....which one do you really think would fund the costs of any patient's major illness without fear of retribution fro the government if they did not? How many do you really think would refrain from practices like undercapitalization without government oversight?

The for-profit model has led to waste, fraud and runaway costs.
 
I'm the only one that suggested a national data base. It's the one thing that has been proven to work.
 
what I have now. a health savings fund. 2500 a year, no deductible, no co-pays. Hosp stays etc. are paid from the major med. section. Zip from our pocket. No referrals nec. I see who I want, when I want.

Actually, this is a great idea. I dunno how we'd fund care for the unemployed, working poor or poor but it's a simple, elegant solution for the middle class and wealthy.

I'd support this.
 
My idea of an ideal health insurance policy:

(1) $100.00 per month per individual. $150.00 per month for a family plan.
(2) No pre-existing condition clause.
(3) No deductible.
(4) Prescriptions included with health insurance. No out of pocket for prescriptions.
(5) Must pay into a health insurance policy for 6 months before any coverage is provided.
(6) Insurance pays full cost for any hospitalization, surgery, medical tests or procedures.
(7) No life-time cap on coverage.
(8) Cannot be dropped from the policy except for non-payment of monthly cost of policy.
(9) A child can remain on the parents policy until the age of 23 if a full-time student. Will remain on the policy until age 18 if not enrolled full-time in school.
(10) Preventive medicine coverage that includes immunizations for those needing immunizations.

This is my idea of what a health care program should be. You pay for your own coverage or you don't get coverage. Absolutely no government control of insurance or insurance administration. Government's only role is to ensure compliance by the insurance companies. Nothing else.

The problem with this is, BBD, it bears no relation to the actual cost of providing care to whatever group you reference. It is far too low, even for a healthy young individual.....so who picks up the excess costs?

And if we continue to use private insurers, who is going to simplify and control costs?
 
I'm the only one that suggested a national data base. It's the one thing that has been proven to work.

Every proposal I have seen coming from the Obama Administration calls for, at a minimum, using private health insurers to do the back room operations. IMO, this is a deadly mistake. When a private insuer is paid, say, 9% of total claims paid to adjust claims, it has zero incentive to control costs and makes every effort (usually successfully) to force providers to use its own idiosyncratic data processing system. The insurers also "feel" possessive about the data generated by their claims handling and not only refuse to share, they refuse to allow the buyer --the government -- to view the claims as it wishes. Auditting becomes meaningless.

In short, there's a financial incentive to do a crappy job, because the private insurer is not writing checks on its own account....the funds are coming from the buyer, the Treasury. Everyone from the data processing companies to the servicing companies to the providers behave like pigs at the trough in this model.

Private insurers must be removed altogether, or we will see no savings to the taxpayers.
 
I dont really have time to line mine out as well as OP did, but to me the ideal system is a private industriy where the Gov't is hands off...maybe some oversight, but let the private sector take care of itself.

In other words If I am not on the governments payroll, they need to leave me the heck alone.

Social medicine does'nt work... it has'nt worked anywhere else, so what gives us the idea it will work for us? Guess thats why people come from all over the world to seek HC here :eusa_eh:

No quick solutions really.... but what they rammed thru last March was a joke!


Oh... one more thing.... if your not a citizen, you go home to get your healthcare (except in extreme emergencies)
I work in the medical industry and it is appauling how many people are here illegally and we cater to them hand and foot. While American citizens wait in line behind them in E.R.'s -- thats just not right.
The free market system for healthcare does not work. The buyer must be capable and willing to evaluate the goods and services received versus the cost. If not the provider will raise the cost to increase revenues which is exactly what's happening. Patients have little or no interest in controlling cost since their insurance company pays most of the cost. The insurance companies are ineffective at controlling costs. They just raise their premiums. It's a broken free market system.

I think the free market system would work if we take out most of the "in-betweens"...the middlemen that cost us so much....this would include insurance companies (for everything except major medical), employers (why should they choose our plans?), and the government (except for the core needy).

If people had to buy their health care directly from their doctors, their clinics and hospitals, they would self-control their regular costs...most people can plan for their auto service and repairs, why not plan for their medical service too?...i believe this would dramatically reduce medical costs as competition would enter the picture...like with auto shops they are competitive and you can shop around and find the mechanic or doctor you like and trust to do a good job and not gouge you...I also believe preventative medicine (& behavior) will become very popular...

A monthly bill: Major-medical or catastrophic insurance would cover the big expensive items that might occur.

A monthly bill: Long-term care should also be a cost addressed from youth onward in order to spread out the cost over one's life to prepare for old age.

Health Savings could be appropriated from paychecks and be tax deductible - this would help people save money for their health bills.....however the individual gets to spend his health money on the health plans of his choice. This money should also cover monthly pmts during times one does not have income.

Government oversight should make sure all insurance plans provide for what people really need and make them easy to read and understand so consumers can shop and easily compare. This will help people understand what they are actially getting and the real costs and how to plan for them. For example young people will soon learn that their monthly pmts will only go up up up if they wait around to buy major medical and LTC. Plans should be lifelong and company insured for stability. Also plans should not be necessarily restricted to one state or location. People should be able to move freely and take a plan with them no matter where they live.
 
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I favor Nationalizing Health Care for all Americans, and paying for it through taxation. And those that want private HC, let them still be able to buy it from any insurer still selling it, or pay cash, etc..
 
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IOW, you favor legalized theft and enslavement.

Thanks for the clarification, not that we needed it.
 

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