Healthcare Reform?

[rayboyusmc]

WASHINGTON – American workers — whose taxes pay for massive government health programs — are getting squeezed like no other group by private health insurance premiums that are rising much faster than their wages.

While just about all retirees are covered, and nearly 90 percent of children have health insurance, workers now are at significantly higher risk of being uninsured than in the 1990s, the last time lawmakers attempted a health care overhaul, according to a study to be released Tuesday.

The study for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that nearly 1 in 5 workers is uninsured, a statistically significant increase from fewer than 1 in 7 during the mid-1990s.

The problem is cost. Total premiums for employer plans have risen six to eight times faster than wages, depending on whether individual or family coverage is picked, the study found.

"The thing I think is interesting is how many workers are newly uninsured," said Lynn Blewett, director of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota, which conducted the research. "In the last couple of years we've seen a deterioration of private health insurance."

About 20.7 million workers were uninsured in the mid-1990s. A decade later, it was 26.9 million, an increase of about 6 million, the study found.

In the 1990s, there were eight states with 20 percent or more of the working age population uninsured. Now there are 14: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas.

Yet workers continue to pay the bill for covering others. Their payroll taxes help support Medicare, which covers the elderly. Income taxes and other federal and state levies pay for covering the poor and the children of low-income working parents. But government provides little direct assistance to help cover workers themselves.

Workers feel the brunt of health insurance woes

 

[Care4all]

This is so true....

Tax payers, pay for the health insurance of the poor, of all in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and for all those that retire from those forces, they pay for the Health Care of all teachers, all Postal workers, all Government Civil Service workers, all congressmen and senators, and anyone that has a government job, from maintenence man to Air Traffic Controllers, and then they also pay more in taxes to give businesses a tax break for the health insurance for their employees, and then there is Medicare...paying the health insurance with our taxes for all of the elderly, and Medicaid...paying the healcare for the indigent or needy or disabled, and now paying for the healthcare of all children with SCHIP....

 

[editec]

All I want is the same health care and dental coverage as my Senators and Representatives in Congress.

Is that asking too much?

 

[Tech_Esq]

This is so true....

Tax payers, pay for the health insurance of the poor, of all in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and for all those that retire from those forces, they pay for the Health Care of all teachers, all Postal workers, all Government Civil Service workers, all congressmen and senators, and anyone that has a government job, from maintenence man to Air Traffic Controllers, and then they also pay more in taxes to give businesses a tax break for the health insurance for their employees, and then there is Medicare...paying the health insurance with our taxes for all of the elderly, and Medicaid...paying the healcare for the indigent or needy or disabled, and now paying for the healthcare of all children with SCHIP....

If you think it's expensive now, just wait until it's free!

It's not mine, but it's true.

 

[WillowTree]

All I want is the same health care and dental coverage as my Senators and Representatives in Congress.

Is that asking too much?

yes! that was one of his campaign lies, it will never happen so get over it.

 

[rayboyusmc]

Wrong, Sweetie, it will happen.

If you think it's expensive now, just wait until it's free!

No one said it will be free. That's another convenient sound bite to attack the idea without real data.

 

[Tech_Esq]

Wrong, Sweetie, it will happen.

If you think it's expensive now, just wait until it's free!

No one said it will be free. That's another convenient sound bite to attack the idea without real data.

There is a way to do this responsibly and correctly without fucking up the entire system. You can bet that's not what we are planning to do. There is a role for government in the fix, but you can bet they will over reach with this plan.

The French have a fairly good model. It has some problems, that we could correct easily if we knew what we were doing. Here's what should be done:

1. The government should remove laws preventing insurance companies from offering health coverage nationwide.

2. The government should create a health insurance pool. The basic rule is that if you (as an insurance company want to participate, you have to insure anyone who signs up).

3. The government regulates the insurance company and ensures a small profit. (Basically like a Ma Bell type utility).

4. The insurance fees are paid in taxes. Coverage is 80% (you pick a number but not 100%)

5. Tax credits are paid to individuals to fund Health Savings Accounts which will cover the last 20% of coverage.

6. If you are poor, the HSAs are funded for you.

7. If you don't use the money in the HSA it rolls over forever and belongs to you. It can only be used for health care costs though.

This structure would:

1. Cover everyone
2. Fix some of the problems of the French system
3. Encourage people to "shop" for the best values in health care because the money used most would be "theirs" and they would have an incentive to keep it.
4. Because of the "shopping" behavior, health care cost should be more effected by market-like forces. This does not occur now because the consumer of health care is not the payer of health care costs. Thus the market is broken.

 

[editec]

That system works in FRANCE because in FRANCE MDs don't expect to make fifty times what the average Frenchman makes.

If we socialize payments, and have that system paying into a cpaitlist system?

The prices will rise as long as the market can bear it.

Got a friends studying medicine in Germany right now.

Wanna know how much this AMERICAN studying to be an MD in Germany is paying?

500 Euros a YEAR.

You see thos eother nations don't have an AMA whose goal is to insure that MDS make huge amounts of money compared to the rest of us.

And since the government encourages people to go into health care, they are insuring that the SUPPLY SIDE isn't entirely out of whack with the DEMAND side, like ours is.

 

[rayboyusmc]

So I get a bill for a million dollars which is not impossible under our current system and my policy only pays 80%

How much do I owe?

 

[Tech_Esq]

So I get a bill for a million dollars which is not impossible under our current system and my policy only pays 80%

How much do I owe?

My post was meant to be more conceptual than nuts and bolts, but in general, it would have the following characteristics:

You would have no "out of pocket" expenditures.

The construct of "payment" out of your HSA can be structured any way that makes sense in a "market" kind of way.

In your example, a catastrophic illness or injury, there would be no benefit to the "shopping" aspect. In that case, it makes no sense for you to have to access your HSA to pay for care.

I would use the HSA to cover drugs, routine care and elective care. Urgent care should be distinguished between truly emergency and people using the ER as a primary care doctor. If it's the latter, your HSA gets billed.

 

[Tech_Esq]

That system works in FRANCE because in FRANCE MDs don't expect to make fifty times what the average Frenchman makes.

If we socialize payments, and have that system paying into a cpaitlist system?

The prices will rise as long as the market can bear it.

Got a friends studying medicine in Germany right now.

Wanna know how much this AMERICAN studying to be an MD in Germany is paying?

500 Euros a YEAR.

You see thos eother nations don't have an AMA whose goal is to insure that MDS make huge amounts of money compared to the rest of us.

And since the government encourages people to go into health care, they are insuring that the SUPPLY SIDE isn't entirely out of whack with the DEMAND side, like ours is.

Maybe if our laws didn't penalize doctors we wouldn't be in the fix we're in with regard to supply (and what kind of supply) and demand.

 

[Bern80]

That system works in FRANCE because in FRANCE MDs don't expect to make fifty times what the average Frenchman makes.

If we socialize payments, and have that system paying into a cpaitlist system?

The prices will rise as long as the market can bear it.

Got a friends studying medicine in Germany right now.

Wanna know how much this AMERICAN studying to be an MD in Germany is paying?

500 Euros a YEAR.

You see thos eother nations don't have an AMA whose goal is to insure that MDS make huge amounts of money compared to the rest of us.

And since the government encourages people to go into health care, they are insuring that the SUPPLY SIDE isn't entirely out of whack with the DEMAND side, like ours is.

Why is it you feel the skills of American physicians are over valued as oppossed to the alternative that maybe Germany undervalues the skills of theirs?

 

[Indiana Oracle]

Lived there for 6 years. The healthcare coverage was similar to the couple of solutions outlined.

Basically, you paid for your healthcare out of your salary taxes. In that sense, it was free. If you wanted better coverage, and many did, you paid for it on top. That was tax deductible (cannot recall the portion).

Physicians were in the upper income levels of the country as they are here. This is not the case across the EU (CH is not a member). Except for altrustic reasons I cannot imagine why a physicial in the UK, for example (lived there as well), would go through all the schooling and training to practice there.

The general EU healthcare setup is very much under fire from the citzenry.

 

[editec]

That system works in FRANCE because in FRANCE MDs don't expect to make fifty times what the average Frenchman makes.

If we socialize payments, and have that system paying into a cpaitlist system?

The prices will rise as long as the market can bear it.

Got a friends studying medicine in Germany right now.

Wanna know how much this AMERICAN studying to be an MD in Germany is paying?

500 Euros a YEAR.

You see thos eother nations don't have an AMA whose goal is to insure that MDS make huge amounts of money compared to the rest of us.

And since the government encourages people to go into health care, they are insuring that the SUPPLY SIDE isn't entirely out of whack with the DEMAND side, like ours is.

Maybe if our laws didn't penalize doctors we wouldn't be in the fix we're in with regard to supply (and what kind of supply) and demand.

That explains about 1% of the overall current cost of HC, but I agree that something must be done about the excalating costs of malpractive insurance.

No, the reason that other nations that have some sort of nationalized HC system has much more to do with how much their practicioners make (in comparison to what the no-practicioners make) compared to ours.

That and their government doesn't allow makers of HC products to gouge them, like ours does by LAW.

We have the most expensive HC system in the world, and are NOT getting our money's worth, Tech.

The money is going somewhere...and given that I know you are a smart man, I know you'll be able to figure out who benefits most from this system.

Let me tell you though, even before you start out your study, that it isn't benefitting any of we consumers of this sort of product. Not, at least, if you believe the mobidity and mortality studies which compare other nation systems to ours.

So the money id going somewhere, right?

Who is benefitting from it.

I'll let you do the research since if I tell you, you might think I'm some kind of class envy driven socialist or something.

 

[Chris]

I gave up my health insurance years ago.

I refuse to support such a stupid system.

Every other Western democracy has a single payer system, and they pay HALF per capita what we pay for healthcare.

 

[Bern80]

I gave up my health insurance years ago.

I refuse to support such a stupid system.

Every other Western democracy has a single payer system, and they pay HALF per capita what we pay for healthcare.

this is so short sighted it's stupid. You do get that cheap health care is not the same as good health care don't you?

I truly wonder if I would be alive today if we had YOUR stupid system.

 

[sealybobo]

All I want is the same health care and dental coverage as my Senators and Representatives in Congress.

Is that asking too much?

Who's fault is our healthcare mess? Lets ask Trump in 2013

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump
Leadership: Whatever happens, you're responsible. If it doesn't happen, you're responsible.


Now ask him the same question today you'll get a different answer.

 

[Conservative65]

All I want is the same health care and dental coverage as my Senators and Representatives in Congress.

Is that asking too much?

Who's fault is our healthcare mess? Lets ask Trump in 2013

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump
Leadership: Whatever happens, you're responsible. If it doesn't happen, you're responsible.


Now ask him the same question today you'll get a different answer.

When Obama was asked about same sex marriage during the 2008 campaign, he was opposed to it. In 2012, when asked, he gave a different answer. The left was all giddy about how he had "evolved". Why would getting a different answer mean anything other than the same thing with Trump? That's right, Obama is a black Democrat and the standards are applied differently.