Are ALL Obamacare supporters truly unable to do simple math??

[healthmyths]

Taken from your own link.
"Nearly 15 million uninsured residents live in households with incomes of $25,000 to $50,000 per year; this group does not qualify for Medicaid and (arguably) earns too little to easily afford expensive family plans costing more than $12,000 per year. "

15 million is almost double the number your creative math reached. Even though all of the articles you linked to say that there is indeed a problem with uninsured people, you managed to pull out the pieces you need to build a rather creative narrative. Well done psycho!

A) First of all where did you get $12,000 family plan cost BECAUSE THE FACTS are:

"This year, employers will pay an average of $12,144 toward the total cost,
while employees will pay the remaining

$8,584 through their share of the cost of health insurance and out-of-pocket expenses.


Health care costs for family of 4 top $20,000

NOT $12,000 as you subjectively moaned!..

Also OUT of pocket costs are part of the $8,584 --- NOT the premium!

 

[healthmyths]

There's nothin remotely simply about health care math.

Unless you're a simpleton, of course, then all solutions to complex problems seem simple.

So you have a problem subtracting 10 million (per Census!) that ARE NOT citizens
You can't subtract 14 million COVERED by Medicaid who said they were uninsured??
And YOU think it is VALID to count 18 million who already pay their health services without buying insurance?

That leaves 8 million that need coverage and NOT 50 million that was used to PASS the 2,000 page act that has generate already 13,000 pages of rules
AND raised the costs of health care!

Why are you defending millionaire lawyers? Why would you BELIEVE any numbers from a government that can't even agree among themselves,
i.e. Census says 10 million are not citizens... Medicaid reports 14 million already covered...
I mean if the govt. can't do simple math.. 24 million from 50 million leaves 26 million of which 18 million DON"T WANT insurance..
How complicated is THAT MATH??

And you want them to decide if you'll get an angioplasty procedure? Or to treat your cancer? If this govt. can't subtract 32 million from 50 million???

 

[Bfgrn]

Are ALL Obamacare supporters truly unable to do simple math??

This is a good post. What has always fascinated me is how the government can cause a problem like skyrocketing healthcare costs and later swoop in with a big-government solution to save the day. How can they fool so many people??? My guess is that it has a lot to do with the dumbing-down of America and the promise of a free lunch.

Government didn't cause skyrocketing healthcare costs. So now what???

 

[Bfgrn]

FIRST I deal with reality and with FACTS... evidently you deal in opinion, subjective observations... you are therefore not credible!
Give me facts as to HOW MANY people not afford.. you never mentioned?

50 million??

THIS IS THE POINT!

If Obamacare can't find out from the Census bureau that 10 million are not citizens or that 14 million are already covered AND they want 18 million who DO pay their health care costs.. THAT leaves 8 million..NOT 50 million how are they going to manage 1/6th of the economy???

Now 8 million who want coverage but can't afford it is because of two reasons:
A) They don't qualify for Medicaid/Medicare but they can't afford insurance premiums or can't get standard insurance!
B) AND why can't they afford health insurance?
In most cases it's because of EMTALA which you've obviously NEVER heard of!
But when hospitals that take Medicare patients are FORCED to take under EMTALA uninsured patients.. guess what they do??
The Pad and pass on sometimes with 6,000% markups to Medicare/private insurance these "uninsured services' costs"!

Solution is first admit there ARE NOT 50 million which was the bogus number to pass Obamacare!

2nd Admit that you and millions look at lawyers as lottery facilitators i.e. if you didn't get the outcome health wise YOU sue!
These lawyers make $100 billion are year primarily from these actions which to prevent, physicians run duplicate tests,etc.
all adding claims to insurance companies that most physicians say are over $600 billion a year in defensive medicine!

And state people can't afford insurance??

Well again part of the problem People are totally ignorant about health insurance finances..
80% of every dollar in premium goes back out in claims!
Yet it appears YOU and other Obamacare supporters don't believe that!
Here look at 6 public companies and what THEY under penalty of law attest as what they pay out in claims from premiums!


The real financial facts are insurance companies annually, every year pay out 80% to the providers
of the premiums they receive and this comes from their financial reports that if they lie they go to jail!
76.9% - Aetna
82.3% - Cigna
83.9% - Health Net
83.2% - Humana
78.6% - UnitedHealth Group

HEALTH REFORM: Medical Loss Ratio or Just Medical Loss? | New America Blogs

I truly don't understand people like you that spout statements without ANY substantiation.. just what you've heard from others....
The above average of 80% paid from premiums is a FACT do you understand? The people that generate these financial statements would be put in jail for submitting false data under SEC/Public disclosure laws.. so they are the facts!
YET stupid Obamacare is ordering 85% as if that is the solution when almost all of the insurance companies are already within 6% of the requirement!

You dismiss 6%, but Wall Street doesn't.

Wendell Potter is former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the United States' largest health insurance companies.

Wendell Potter

The Insurance Industry's Lethal Bottom Line -- and a Solution From Sens. Franken and Rockefeller

There was a time, in the early 1990s, when health insurance companies devoted more than 95 cents out of every premium dollar to paying doctors and hospitals for taking care of their members. No more. Since President Bill Clinton's health reform plan died 15 years ago, the health insurance industry has come to be dominated by a handful of insurance companies that answer to Wall Street investors, and they have changed that basic math. Today, insurers only pay about 81 cents of each premium dollar on actual medical care. The rest is consumed by rising profits, grotesque executive salaries, huge administrative expenses, the cost of weeding out people with pre-existing conditions and claims review designed to wear out patients with denials and disapprovals of the care they need the most.

This equation is known as the medical loss ratio (MLR), an aptly named figure that is widely seen by investors as the most important gauge of an insurance company's current and future profitability. In a private health insurance industry that collected $817 billion this year, a 14 percentage point difference in the MLR represents $112 billion a year! Over 10 years, that would be more than enough to pay for health reform.

Thanks to the efforts of several senators who pushed for a minimum MLR to be included in reform legislation, the current Senate bill requires insurers to provide an annual rebate to each enrollee if non-claims costs exceed 20% in the group market and 25% in the individual market.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank You, UnitedHealth Group. Your Jaw-Dropping Profit Announcement May Be Just What the Doctor Ordered.


The All-Important "Medical Loss Ratio"

During my years as a corporate executive at CIGNA, another one of the big for-profit insurers, one of the things I did was to explain to the financial media why the company's MLR went up or down during a specific period of time. There is constant pressure from investors and Wall Street analysts for insurance company executives to take whatever means are necessary to keep pushing the MLR lower and lower. If they don't succeed, they get punished, often severely, in the stock market. Aetna's stock price once fell more than 20% in a single day after executives disclosed that the company had spent slightly more on medical claims during the most recent quarter than in a previous period. What triggered the "sell" alarm was the company's announcement that its first quarter MLR increased to 79.4% from 77.9% the previous year.

Insurance company executives will never forget the beating that Aetna took that day. Not only did the company's market cap shrink, but so did the stock options held by Aetna's senior executives. The CEO alone lost millions in compensation by reporting an MLR that didn't meet Wall Street's expectations.

Insurance Companies Want to Keep the Champagne Corks Popping

That lesson certainly was not lost on United's executives. One of the main reasons why the company was able to exceed Wall Street's profit expectations for the third quarter that just ended was its ability to push its commercial-segment MLR, which comprises most of its customers, much lower than usual. It dropped a whopping 3.7 percentage points to 80.9%. United, and the other big for-profits, reported even bigger drops during the second quarter of this year. These are the results that bring out the champagne on Wall Street, when you reduce the amount you spend on medical care and make your customers pay more.

Insurers sent their lobbyists across the country to meet personally with the insurance commissioners (and lobbyists are as thick as thieves here in Orlando) because they want the commissioners to give them the slack they need to continue being able to push their MLRs down to what will be a legal minimum next year. The more they can get the commissioners to write the often obscure but critically important rules in their favor -- even if those rules violate the health care reform statute -- the happier it will make Wall Street. That is what is really going on here. It is as simple as that.

The timing of United's embarrassment of riches, however, is causing great concern on Wall Street. Investors and analysts are keeping up with what is going on in Orlando more than anyone except perhaps insurance company executives. They know that the commissioners are expected to complete their work on the MLR regulations Thursday morning and send their recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as the law stipulates. In a report Tuesday morning, Carl McDonald of Citigroup Investment Research wrote that United's impressive numbers "couldn't come at a worse time politically. We're at a critical time juncture, as the Health and Human Services Secretary will soon provide final minimum MLR guidance and decide how often to grant MLR waivers. United beating its initial earnings guidance this year by over $1.6 billion pre-tax certainly doesn't help the industry's cause."

 

[xsited1]

Are ALL Obamacare supporters truly unable to do simple math??

This is a good post. What has always fascinated me is how the government can cause a problem like skyrocketing healthcare costs and later swoop in with a big-government solution to save the day. How can they fool so many people??? My guess is that it has a lot to do with the dumbing-down of America and the promise of a free lunch.

Government didn't cause skyrocketing healthcare costs. So now what???

Yes, it did. Do you think it's a coincidence that when government finally got their claws in health care, costs skyrocketed? There are many reasons for this, one of which I mentioned in a previous post. Costs and physician salaries started to skyrocket in 1965. When doctors and consumers can get just about anything they want without regard to cost by paying a small deductible and/or co-pay, high costs follow. Imagine having food insurance. Would you buy hamburger or steak if the co-pay was the same?

 

[healthmyths]

These two areas WASTE as the Institute of Medicine 18 month study shows.. nearly
$750 billion a year! Report: US health care system wastes $750B a year - Fort Lauderdale Business | Examiner.com

Obamacare is about more than coverage.

You cite the recent IOM report but ignore its recommendations:

1. The digital infrastructure. Improve the capacity to capture clinical, care delivery process, and financial data for better care, system improvement, and the generation of knowledge.
2. The data utility. Streamline and revise research regulations to improve care, promote the capture of clinical data, and generate knowledge.
3. Clinical decision support. Accelerate integration of the best clinical knowledge into care decisions.
4. Patient-centered care. Involve patients and families in decisions regarding health and health care, tailored to fit their preferences.
5. Community links. Promote community-clinical partnerships and services aimed at managed and improving health at the community level.
6. Care continuity. Improve the care coordination and community within and across organizations.
7. Optimized operations. Continuously improve health care operations to reduce waste, streamline care delivery, and focus on activities that improve patient health.
8. Financial incentives. Structure payment to reward continuous learning and improvement in the provision of best care at lower cost.
9. Performance transparency. Increase transparency on health care system performance.
10. Broad leadership. Expand commitment to the goals of a continuously learning health system.

The same philosophy that animates the IOM is what underpins the Affordable Care Act, which is the first big piece of legislation to pursue these goals in a cohesive, comprehensive way.

Getting millions of people coverage in 15 months or so is good. But the items in that IOM list--that's where the really exciting pieces of the ACA are focused.

MILLIONS are GETTING coverage that
A) are not legally eligible.. I.E. 10 million are NOT citizens!
B) 14 million ARE ALREADY COVERED BY MEDICAID.. AND NOW DOUBLE COVERED??
C) 18 million NEVER NEEDED coverage. They pay their own health costs because on average they are:
under age 34... Make over $50k .... already pay an average of $1,000 out of pocket health (less then what insurance costs them!!

So Where are the "millions"?????
That was the point of this whole thread!
There never was 50 million!

And please YOU don't need to tell me an expert in Medicare health services (over 10,000 times a day Medicare providers ask my company I built if they'll get paid by Medicare.. I know a whole LOT more then you could EVER LEARN..)

Oh.. by the way Do you know what ICD-10, CPT codes are? What the HCPCS code "A0425" is (of 10,000 codes) ?
By the way Did you know in 2008 There were 2,712,626 rotary wing air mileage reimbursed by Medicare at a total of $62,355,498.28 ?
MY point in smothering you with these arcane BUT real facts that I deal with DAILY,

is to show you my superiority in knowledge about Medicare AND
the simple fact that there were NEVER 50 million "uninsured"!

That is the major point of this thread.
People need to understand that Obamacare was passed with PHONY numbers.. there were never 50 million Uninsured!

This is such a classic illustration of the Hans Christian Anderson's "The Emperor's New Clothes,. there IS NOTHING there but MAJOR MAJOR disruption far
greater then the 1996 HIPAA has done that ADDED 30 billion a year in health care administration costs!
In Obamacare there will be a factor of 1,000s in disruption.. Obama wants to destroy a tax generating base of $100 billion putting 400,000 people out of work with this bill!

I challenge you to tell me what city you live in and I'll show you the gross overcharging of Medicare by the largest hospital in that city!! Tell me and let me prove to you!

 

[Bfgrn]

This is a good post. What has always fascinated me is how the government can cause a problem like skyrocketing healthcare costs and later swoop in with a big-government solution to save the day. How can they fool so many people??? My guess is that it has a lot to do with the dumbing-down of America and the promise of a free lunch.

Government didn't cause skyrocketing healthcare costs. So now what???

Yes, it did. Do you think it's a coincidence that when government finally got their claws in health care, costs skyrocketed? There are many reasons for this, one of which I mentioned in a previous post. Costs and physician salaries started to skyrocket in 1965. When doctors and consumers can get just about anything they want without regard to cost by paying a small deductible and/or co-pay, high costs follow. Imagine having food insurance. Would you buy hamburger or steak if the co-pay was the same?

Link?

From a doctor:

Insurance companies were originally run by doctors. Their idea was to spread the risk. They had a sense that getting sick usually wasn't fair, so going bankrupt because you were sick probably also wasn't fair. They had the idea that pooling people in advance made it easier on everyone, and improved access to healthcare.

It's a great irony that only a few years later, some business people (people who are very good with money, but not so interested in medicine) realized that they could make a lot of money on health insurance if they created a special insurance plan that excluded the sickest people. In other words, insurance for people who probably didn't need it, which was very different from the original idea of health insurance for everyone, but far more profitable. The idea of preexisting conditions is almost as old as health insurance itself.

Here's one way to look at how the system came to be: People usually try to find occupations that follow what they love, at least in the beginning. Hospitals can be callous in their billing, as we've seen, and doctors like money as much as anyone else, but fundamentally there was a point in their lives when they (doctors and people who run hospitals) decided to get into the profession of helping sick people. Some are genuinely compassionate. Some are biology wonks or technology wonks, or just like the action. But most of them lose interest pretty quickly when they have to start dealing with complicated financial matters like insurance payments.

The first insurance companies were started by doctors, but they couldn't stay in the game when the money professionals started showing. They couldn't compete financially, and they didn't have the mindset to try. So they did what most of us do: focus on the details that interested them (medicine), and left the tedious stuff (finances) to someone who was interested in it (insurance companies). Now the insurance companies could start building a system in their image.

As the system grew and healthcare became more complex, more people came into the health insurance industry who had a good understanding of money but little interest in healthcare. It's no secret that confused people are easier to take advantage of, so layers of confusion were slowly piled on and profits soared.

Doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers didn't protest as the process slowly grew away from them because, while this was happening, they too, were making money, and didn't think they needed to worry about it. As the system became less and less transparent, insurance companies were careful to make sure that all of the major players were kept very happy. But you can't keep everyone happy forever, and when things get tight, that's when you start to learn who's running the system. Now, after 30 to 40 years of slowly allowing all of our understanding of the financial transactions to erode, we are left seeing more and more money dumped into a black hole with little understanding of what happens to it.

 

[Greenbeard]

Obamacare is about more than coverage.

You cite the recent IOM report but ignore its recommendations:

1. The digital infrastructure. Improve the capacity to capture clinical, care delivery process, and financial data for better care, system improvement, and the generation of knowledge.
2. The data utility. Streamline and revise research regulations to improve care, promote the capture of clinical data, and generate knowledge.
3. Clinical decision support. Accelerate integration of the best clinical knowledge into care decisions.
4. Patient-centered care. Involve patients and families in decisions regarding health and health care, tailored to fit their preferences.
5. Community links. Promote community-clinical partnerships and services aimed at managed and improving health at the community level.
6. Care continuity. Improve the care coordination and community within and across organizations.
7. Optimized operations. Continuously improve health care operations to reduce waste, streamline care delivery, and focus on activities that improve patient health.
8. Financial incentives. Structure payment to reward continuous learning and improvement in the provision of best care at lower cost.
9. Performance transparency. Increase transparency on health care system performance.
10. Broad leadership. Expand commitment to the goals of a continuously learning health system.

The same philosophy that animates the IOM is what underpins the Affordable Care Act, which is the first big piece of legislation to pursue these goals in a cohesive, comprehensive way.

Getting millions of people coverage in 15 months or so is good. But the items in that IOM list--that's where the really exciting pieces of the ACA are focused.

That was the point of this whole thread!
There never was 50 million!

Cool. But haggling over the number of "legitimate" insured is irrelevant at this point; it was barely relevant in 2009.

As my post above should have made clear, there are bigger fish to fry here than pinpointing exactly how many millions of Americans will get reliable access to health insurance and care for the first time ("a hell of a lot" should be a sufficient answer).

This is about building markets that work for consumers, fixing the broken incentives at every level of the health system that inflate costs, and building the support systems that patients and doctors need to access and provide higher-quality care in a smarter and more patient-friendly way.

I've said it before: our health care institutions--from private insurance markets to provider organizations to our public programs and our public health infrastructure--are not set up to meet the demands of the 21st century. We literally can't afford for them to approach the problems of the next 50 years the way they tackled the problems of the last 50 years. They need to be more nimble, more data-driven and evidence-based, more accountable, more outcomes-oriented, and ultimately much better at delivering bang for the buck. The ACA takes this approach and it does so on a number of different fronts simultaneously.

Your relentless and pointless attempts to deny the existence of the uninsured misses the point by a mile.

 

[Amazed]

They don't do any thinking at all for themselves, they regurgitate the daily talking points put out for them.

 

[healthmyths]

I keep reading EVERYTHING else supporting Obamacare BUT NO ONE has satisfactorily shown where there are 50 million truly UNINSURED!

The closest to refuting was making a statement about 15 million UNINSURED that didn't qualify for Medicaid because they made too much money!
The poster hyped health insurance costs stating it was $12,000 a year ... BUT NO substantiation for that hyperbolic statement!

I responded pointing out average employee pays $8,000 of which a portion was out of pocket, deductibles,etc. BUT NOT $12,000!

Yet NO one else seems to refute my simple math exercise WHICH at the minium shows that Obamacare wants to manage 1/6th of the economy but has no IDEA as to the size of the market place! Their own Census says 10 million are not citizens!
Studies show 14 million are people ALREADY covered and Obamacare wants to cover them again???
18 million counted as uninsured.. PAY their own way averaging less then $1,000 a year in out of pocket health service expenses as they are under 34!
That leaves 8 million! Is that complicated?

So we have Obamacare totally destroying health care services delivery, doctors quitting, health insurance costs still increasing and Obamacare hasn't been fully implemented! Obamacare shows 6 years of expenses but 10 years of revenues! ANY business would LOVE to go to their banker (in this case the US general taxpayer!) and say OH.. don't worry about 10 years of expenses because ah..ah... well it is just not an issue!!!

Any banker out there that would look at pro-forma with 6 years of expenses and 10 years of revenue???
Laughed right out of the place!

 

[rdean]

Let me explain something.

If you go to the "Emergency Room", the cost is anywhere from 10 to hundreds of times the cost of going to a clinic or a doctor. That cost is passed on to the tax payers.

People using the Emergency Room as their primary source of health care were bankrupting Massachusetts. This was why Mitt Romney started Romneycare.

Normally, Romney would be able to run on this creation which has helped the state avoid financial disaster, but the right wing is too ******* stupid because of their blind hatred for this president. They even think health care is a "bad" thing because of their undying loyalty to bigotry and hatred and their worship of "dumbfuck". We can't change them. But they are getting old. Too bad we have to give them "health care".

AND YOU are even MORE f...k stupid!
IDIOT I work daily with Medicare and I can tell you what YOUR local hospital EARNS,
what they overCharge Medicare (sometimes 6,000%!!) doing what you said..
"padding and passing" on these Uninsured costs!

And you. dumbf...k.. YOU NEVER heard of EMTALA have you? Passed in 1986 much like Obamacare supposedly to do something compassionate for exactly what you said!

BUT you.dumbf...K YOU never mentioned the number one reason which a recent 18 month study by the Institute of Medicine.. AGAIN you never substantiate you idiocies)
CHECK THIS OUT idiot before you make more stupid comments!
ALSO I DARE you .. tell me what city you live in and I'll tell you what the largest hospital overcharges Medicare.. sometimes 6,000% MARKUP all due to EMTALA!

Report: US health care system wastes $750,000,000,000 a year
Report: US health care system wastes $750B a year - Fort Lauderdale Business | Examiner.com

But dumb f..ks like you FEEL not think cause you don't we NEED more government!
Well you idiot... THAT's WHAT got us here in the first place!

A) Gross exaggeration of 50 million uninsured.. THERE ARE less then 8 million!
B) Obama wants to destroy private health insurance companies.. in turn REDUCING $100 billion a year in tax revenue!!!

I'm stupid? It's those ******* Republicans who won't let us have a single payer system because think it's communism or some shit.

 

[RDD_1210]

Taken from your own link.
"Nearly 15 million uninsured residents live in households with incomes of $25,000 to $50,000 per year; this group does not qualify for Medicaid and (arguably) earns too little to easily afford expensive family plans costing more than $12,000 per year. "

15 million is almost double the number your creative math reached. Even though all of the articles you linked to say that there is indeed a problem with uninsured people, you managed to pull out the pieces you need to build a rather creative narrative. Well done psycho!

A) First of all where did you get $12,000 family plan cost BECAUSE THE FACTS are:

"This year, employers will pay an average of $12,144 toward the total cost,
while employees will pay the remaining

$8,584 through their share of the cost of health insurance and out-of-pocket expenses.


Health care costs for family of 4 top $20,000

NOT $12,000 as you subjectively moaned!..

Also OUT of pocket costs are part of the $8,584 --- NOT the premium!

LOL, I got it from YOUR link. Don't like it, blame yourself.

 

[healthmyths]

FIRST I deal with reality and with FACTS... evidently you deal in opinion, subjective observations... you are therefore not credible!
Give me facts as to HOW MANY people not afford.. you never mentioned?

50 million??

THIS IS THE POINT!

If Obamacare can't find out from the Census bureau that 10 million are not citizens or that 14 million are already covered AND they want 18 million who DO pay their health care costs.. THAT leaves 8 million..NOT 50 million how are they going to manage 1/6th of the economy???

Now 8 million who want coverage but can't afford it is because of two reasons:
A) They don't qualify for Medicaid/Medicare but they can't afford insurance premiums or can't get standard insurance!
B) AND why can't they afford health insurance?
In most cases it's because of EMTALA which you've obviously NEVER heard of!
But when hospitals that take Medicare patients are FORCED to take under EMTALA uninsured patients.. guess what they do??
The Pad and pass on sometimes with 6,000% markups to Medicare/private insurance these "uninsured services' costs"!

Solution is first admit there ARE NOT 50 million which was the bogus number to pass Obamacare!

2nd Admit that you and millions look at lawyers as lottery facilitators i.e. if you didn't get the outcome health wise YOU sue!
These lawyers make $100 billion are year primarily from these actions which to prevent, physicians run duplicate tests,etc.
all adding claims to insurance companies that most physicians say are over $600 billion a year in defensive medicine!

And state people can't afford insurance??

Well again part of the problem People are totally ignorant about health insurance finances..
80% of every dollar in premium goes back out in claims!
Yet it appears YOU and other Obamacare supporters don't believe that!
Here look at 6 public companies and what THEY under penalty of law attest as what they pay out in claims from premiums!




The real financial facts are insurance companies annually, every year pay out 80% to the providers
of the premiums they receive and this comes from their financial reports that if they lie they go to jail!
76.9% - Aetna
82.3% - Cigna
83.9% - Health Net
83.2% - Humana
78.6% - UnitedHealth Group

HEALTH REFORM: Medical Loss Ratio or Just Medical Loss? | New America Blogs

I truly don't understand people like you that spout statements without ANY substantiation.. just what you've heard from others....
The above average of 80% paid from premiums is a FACT do you understand? The people that generate these financial statements would be put in jail for submitting false data under SEC/Public disclosure laws.. so they are the facts!
YET stupid Obamacare is ordering 85% as if that is the solution when almost all of the insurance companies are already within 6% of the requirement!

You dismiss 6%, but Wall Street doesn't.

Wendell Potter is former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the United States' largest health insurance companies.

Wendell Potter

The Insurance Industry's Lethal Bottom Line -- and a Solution From Sens. Franken and Rockefeller

There was a time, in the early 1990s, when health insurance companies devoted more than 95 cents out of every premium dollar to paying doctors and hospitals for taking care of their members. No more. Since President Bill Clinton's health reform plan died 15 years ago, the health insurance industry has come to be dominated by a handful of insurance companies that answer to Wall Street investors, and they have changed that basic math. Today, insurers only pay about 81 cents of each premium dollar on actual medical care. The rest is consumed by rising profits, grotesque executive salaries, huge administrative expenses, the cost of weeding out people with pre-existing conditions and claims review designed to wear out patients with denials and disapprovals of the care they need the most.

This equation is known as the medical loss ratio (MLR), an aptly named figure that is widely seen by investors as the most important gauge of an insurance company's current and future profitability. In a private health insurance industry that collected $817 billion this year, a 14 percentage point difference in the MLR represents $112 billion a year! Over 10 years, that would be more than enough to pay for health reform.

Thanks to the efforts of several senators who pushed for a minimum MLR to be included in reform legislation, the current Senate bill requires insurers to provide an annual rebate to each enrollee if non-claims costs exceed 20% in the group market and 25% in the individual market.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank You, UnitedHealth Group. Your Jaw-Dropping Profit Announcement May Be Just What the Doctor Ordered.


The All-Important "Medical Loss Ratio"

During my years as a corporate executive at CIGNA, another one of the big for-profit insurers, one of the things I did was to explain to the financial media why the company's MLR went up or down during a specific period of time. There is constant pressure from investors and Wall Street analysts for insurance company executives to take whatever means are necessary to keep pushing the MLR lower and lower. If they don't succeed, they get punished, often severely, in the stock market. Aetna's stock price once fell more than 20% in a single day after executives disclosed that the company had spent slightly more on medical claims during the most recent quarter than in a previous period. What triggered the "sell" alarm was the company's announcement that its first quarter MLR increased to 79.4% from 77.9% the previous year.

Insurance company executives will never forget the beating that Aetna took that day. Not only did the company's market cap shrink, but so did the stock options held by Aetna's senior executives. The CEO alone lost millions in compensation by reporting an MLR that didn't meet Wall Street's expectations.

Insurance Companies Want to Keep the Champagne Corks Popping

That lesson certainly was not lost on United's executives. One of the main reasons why the company was able to exceed Wall Street's profit expectations for the third quarter that just ended was its ability to push its commercial-segment MLR, which comprises most of its customers, much lower than usual. It dropped a whopping 3.7 percentage points to 80.9%. United, and the other big for-profits, reported even bigger drops during the second quarter of this year. These are the results that bring out the champagne on Wall Street, when you reduce the amount you spend on medical care and make your customers pay more.

Insurers sent their lobbyists across the country to meet personally with the insurance commissioners (and lobbyists are as thick as thieves here in Orlando) because they want the commissioners to give them the slack they need to continue being able to push their MLRs down to what will be a legal minimum next year. The more they can get the commissioners to write the often obscure but critically important rules in their favor -- even if those rules violate the health care reform statute -- the happier it will make Wall Street. That is what is really going on here. It is as simple as that.

The timing of United's embarrassment of riches, however, is causing great concern on Wall Street. Investors and analysts are keeping up with what is going on in Orlando more than anyone except perhaps insurance company executives. They know that the commissioners are expected to complete their work on the MLR regulations Thursday morning and send their recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as the law stipulates. In a report Tuesday morning, Carl McDonald of Citigroup Investment Research wrote that United's impressive numbers "couldn't come at a worse time politically. We're at a critical time juncture, as the Health and Human Services Secretary will soon provide final minimum MLR guidance and decide how often to grant MLR waivers. United beating its initial earnings guidance this year by over $1.6 billion pre-tax certainly doesn't help the industry's cause."

NO Potter worked for CIGNA as former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA!
He was a disgruntled employee who DIDN"T have any contact with the financial aspects of how Cigna works!
He was a PR hack! A leading expert on modern corporate propaganda and its use by the public.

HE had NO where the knowledge of how Medicare works.
In fact he thinks Medicare processes claims just as you probably do!
WRONG!!
Up to 2003 when Modernization ACT which most people associate with Part D was enacted it streamlined from over 200 different contractors around the country in 50 states. Now there are less then 20 that bid on processing the 1 billion in claims and $ 983 billion in payments in 2010. Statistics Potter and much less obviously do you have any knowledge!
Yet this guy through his PR expertise (WHICH I don't have... I have detailed knowledge but not any media contacts like Potter) has been identified as an EXPERT! He is NOT about Medicare.. does have more knowledge about Cigna obviously then I do but he DOESN'T know nearly as much as I do about Medicare!

He is a PR hack and ALL MSM has made him the "expert" but he is full of crap!
He doesn't even know what the "medical liability ratio" is if you asked him!
Which by the way for MOST health insurance companies is 80% of Premiums paid out in claims.. and CIGNA
The real financial facts are insurance companies annually, every year pay out 80% to the providers
of the premiums they receive and this comes from their financial reports that if they lie they go to jail!
76.9% - Aetna
82.3% - Cigna
83.9% - Health Net
83.2% - Humana
78.6% - UnitedHealth Group

http://www.newamerica.net/blog/new-health-dialogue/2009/health-reform-medical-loss-ratio-or-just-medical-loss-15773

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Let me explain something.

If you go to the "Emergency Room", the cost is anywhere from 10 to hundreds of times the cost of going to a clinic or a doctor. That cost is passed on to the tax payers.

People using the Emergency Room as their primary source of health care were bankrupting Massachusetts. This was why Mitt Romney started Romneycare.

Normally, Romney would be able to run on this creation which has helped the state avoid financial disaster, but the right wing is too ******* stupid because of their blind hatred for this president. They even think health care is a "bad" thing because of their undying loyalty to bigotry and hatred and their worship of "dumbfuck". We can't change them. But they are getting old. Too bad we have to give them "health care".

AND YOU are even MORE f...k stupid!
IDIOT I work daily with Medicare and I can tell you what YOUR local hospital EARNS,
what they overCharge Medicare (sometimes 6,000%!!) doing what you said..
"padding and passing" on these Uninsured costs!

And you. dumbf...k.. YOU NEVER heard of EMTALA have you? Passed in 1986 much like Obamacare supposedly to do something compassionate for exactly what you said!

BUT you.dumbf...K YOU never mentioned the number one reason which a recent 18 month study by the Institute of Medicine.. AGAIN you never substantiate you idiocies)
CHECK THIS OUT idiot before you make more stupid comments!
ALSO I DARE you .. tell me what city you live in and I'll tell you what the largest hospital overcharges Medicare.. sometimes 6,000% MARKUP all due to EMTALA!

Report: US health care system wastes $750,000,000,000 a year
Report: US health care system wastes $750B a year - Fort Lauderdale Business | Examiner.com

But dumb f..ks like you FEEL not think cause you don't we NEED more government!
Well you idiot... THAT's WHAT got us here in the first place!

A) Gross exaggeration of 50 million uninsured.. THERE ARE less then 8 million!
B) Obama wants to destroy private health insurance companies.. in turn REDUCING $100 billion a year in tax revenue!!!

I'm stupid? It's those ******* Republicans who won't let us have a single payer system because think it's communism or some shit.

that's because it IS communism shit stupid.....

if they can lie about 50 million vs 8 million.....think what else they are lying about.....

 

[8537]

I see some are trying to have an intelligent discussion with Healthmyths.

Save your energy and teach your dog to play piano instead. Far higher chance of success.

 

[Bfgrn]

FIRST I deal with reality and with FACTS... evidently you deal in opinion, subjective observations... you are therefore not credible!
Give me facts as to HOW MANY people not afford.. you never mentioned?

50 million??

THIS IS THE POINT!

If Obamacare can't find out from the Census bureau that 10 million are not citizens or that 14 million are already covered AND they want 18 million who DO pay their health care costs.. THAT leaves 8 million..NOT 50 million how are they going to manage 1/6th of the economy???

Now 8 million who want coverage but can't afford it is because of two reasons:
A) They don't qualify for Medicaid/Medicare but they can't afford insurance premiums or can't get standard insurance!
B) AND why can't they afford health insurance?
In most cases it's because of EMTALA which you've obviously NEVER heard of!
But when hospitals that take Medicare patients are FORCED to take under EMTALA uninsured patients.. guess what they do??
The Pad and pass on sometimes with 6,000% markups to Medicare/private insurance these "uninsured services' costs"!

Solution is first admit there ARE NOT 50 million which was the bogus number to pass Obamacare!

2nd Admit that you and millions look at lawyers as lottery facilitators i.e. if you didn't get the outcome health wise YOU sue!
These lawyers make $100 billion are year primarily from these actions which to prevent, physicians run duplicate tests,etc.
all adding claims to insurance companies that most physicians say are over $600 billion a year in defensive medicine!

And state people can't afford insurance??

Well again part of the problem People are totally ignorant about health insurance finances..
80% of every dollar in premium goes back out in claims!
Yet it appears YOU and other Obamacare supporters don't believe that!
Here look at 6 public companies and what THEY under penalty of law attest as what they pay out in claims from premiums!




The real financial facts are insurance companies annually, every year pay out 80% to the providers
of the premiums they receive and this comes from their financial reports that if they lie they go to jail!
76.9% - Aetna
82.3% - Cigna
83.9% - Health Net
83.2% - Humana
78.6% - UnitedHealth Group

HEALTH REFORM: Medical Loss Ratio or Just Medical Loss? | New America Blogs

I truly don't understand people like you that spout statements without ANY substantiation.. just what you've heard from others....
The above average of 80% paid from premiums is a FACT do you understand? The people that generate these financial statements would be put in jail for submitting false data under SEC/Public disclosure laws.. so they are the facts!
YET stupid Obamacare is ordering 85% as if that is the solution when almost all of the insurance companies are already within 6% of the requirement!

You dismiss 6%, but Wall Street doesn't.

Wendell Potter is former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the United States' largest health insurance companies.

Wendell Potter

The Insurance Industry's Lethal Bottom Line -- and a Solution From Sens. Franken and Rockefeller

There was a time, in the early 1990s, when health insurance companies devoted more than 95 cents out of every premium dollar to paying doctors and hospitals for taking care of their members. No more. Since President Bill Clinton's health reform plan died 15 years ago, the health insurance industry has come to be dominated by a handful of insurance companies that answer to Wall Street investors, and they have changed that basic math. Today, insurers only pay about 81 cents of each premium dollar on actual medical care. The rest is consumed by rising profits, grotesque executive salaries, huge administrative expenses, the cost of weeding out people with pre-existing conditions and claims review designed to wear out patients with denials and disapprovals of the care they need the most.

This equation is known as the medical loss ratio (MLR), an aptly named figure that is widely seen by investors as the most important gauge of an insurance company's current and future profitability. In a private health insurance industry that collected $817 billion this year, a 14 percentage point difference in the MLR represents $112 billion a year! Over 10 years, that would be more than enough to pay for health reform.

Thanks to the efforts of several senators who pushed for a minimum MLR to be included in reform legislation, the current Senate bill requires insurers to provide an annual rebate to each enrollee if non-claims costs exceed 20% in the group market and 25% in the individual market.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank You, UnitedHealth Group. Your Jaw-Dropping Profit Announcement May Be Just What the Doctor Ordered.


The All-Important "Medical Loss Ratio"

During my years as a corporate executive at CIGNA, another one of the big for-profit insurers, one of the things I did was to explain to the financial media why the company's MLR went up or down during a specific period of time. There is constant pressure from investors and Wall Street analysts for insurance company executives to take whatever means are necessary to keep pushing the MLR lower and lower. If they don't succeed, they get punished, often severely, in the stock market. Aetna's stock price once fell more than 20% in a single day after executives disclosed that the company had spent slightly more on medical claims during the most recent quarter than in a previous period. What triggered the "sell" alarm was the company's announcement that its first quarter MLR increased to 79.4% from 77.9% the previous year.

Insurance company executives will never forget the beating that Aetna took that day. Not only did the company's market cap shrink, but so did the stock options held by Aetna's senior executives. The CEO alone lost millions in compensation by reporting an MLR that didn't meet Wall Street's expectations.

Insurance Companies Want to Keep the Champagne Corks Popping

That lesson certainly was not lost on United's executives. One of the main reasons why the company was able to exceed Wall Street's profit expectations for the third quarter that just ended was its ability to push its commercial-segment MLR, which comprises most of its customers, much lower than usual. It dropped a whopping 3.7 percentage points to 80.9%. United, and the other big for-profits, reported even bigger drops during the second quarter of this year. These are the results that bring out the champagne on Wall Street, when you reduce the amount you spend on medical care and make your customers pay more.

Insurers sent their lobbyists across the country to meet personally with the insurance commissioners (and lobbyists are as thick as thieves here in Orlando) because they want the commissioners to give them the slack they need to continue being able to push their MLRs down to what will be a legal minimum next year. The more they can get the commissioners to write the often obscure but critically important rules in their favor -- even if those rules violate the health care reform statute -- the happier it will make Wall Street. That is what is really going on here. It is as simple as that.

The timing of United's embarrassment of riches, however, is causing great concern on Wall Street. Investors and analysts are keeping up with what is going on in Orlando more than anyone except perhaps insurance company executives. They know that the commissioners are expected to complete their work on the MLR regulations Thursday morning and send their recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as the law stipulates. In a report Tuesday morning, Carl McDonald of Citigroup Investment Research wrote that United's impressive numbers "couldn't come at a worse time politically. We're at a critical time juncture, as the Health and Human Services Secretary will soon provide final minimum MLR guidance and decide how often to grant MLR waivers. United beating its initial earnings guidance this year by over $1.6 billion pre-tax certainly doesn't help the industry's cause."

NO Potter worked for CIGNA as former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA!
He was a disgruntled employee who DIDN"T have any contact with the financial aspects of how Cigna works!
He was a PR hack! A leading expert on modern corporate propaganda and its use by the public.

HE had NO where the knowledge of how Medicare works.
In fact he thinks Medicare processes claims just as you probably do!
WRONG!!
Up to 2003 when Modernization ACT which most people associate with Part D was enacted it streamlined from over 200 different contractors around the country in 50 states. Now there are less then 20 that bid on processing the 1 billion in claims and $ 983 billion in payments in 2010. Statistics Potter and much less obviously do you have any knowledge!
Yet this guy through his PR expertise (WHICH I don't have... I have detailed knowledge but not any media contacts like Potter) has been identified as an EXPERT! He is NOT about Medicare.. does have more knowledge about Cigna obviously then I do but he DOESN'T know nearly as much as I do about Medicare!

He is a PR hack and ALL MSM has made him the "expert" but he is full of crap!
He doesn't even know what the "medical liability ratio" is if you asked him!
Which by the way for MOST health insurance companies is 80% of Premiums paid out in claims.. and CIGNA
The real financial facts are insurance companies annually, every year pay out 80% to the providers
of the premiums they receive and this comes from their financial reports that if they lie they go to jail!
76.9% - Aetna
82.3% - Cigna
83.9% - Health Net
83.2% - Humana
78.6% - UnitedHealth Group

http://www.newamerica.net/blog/new-health-dialogue/2009/health-reform-medical-loss-ratio-or-just-medical-loss-15773

You didn't read a word Potter said. But that is not surprising. You didn't even read the article YOU posted that you used to rag on government.

Report: US health care system wastes $750B a year - Fort Lauderdale Business | Examiner.com

From YOUR article:

More than 18 months in the making, the report identified six major areas of waste: unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); inefficient delivery of care ($130 billion); excess administrative costs ($190 billion); inflated prices ($105 billion); prevention failures ($55 billion), and fraud ($75 billion). Adjusting for some overlap among the categories, the panel settled on an estimate of $750 billion.

Examples of wasteful care include most repeat colonoscopies within 10 years of a first such test, early imaging for most back pain, and brain scans for patients who fainted but didn't have seizures.

The report makes ten recommendations, including payment reforms to reward quality results instead of reimbursing for each procedure, improving coordination among different kinds of service providers, leveraging technology to reinforce sound clinical decisions and educating patients to become more savvy consumers.

The report's main message for government is to accelerate payment reforms, said panel chair Dr. Mark Smith, president of the California HealthCare Foundation, a research group. For employers, it's to move beyond cost shifts to workers and start demanding accountability from hospitals and major medical groups. For doctors, it means getting beyond the bubble of solo practice and collaborating with peers and other clinicians.

 

[healthmyths]

You dismiss 6%, but Wall Street doesn't.

Wendell Potter is former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the United States' largest health insurance companies.

Wendell Potter

The Insurance Industry's Lethal Bottom Line -- and a Solution From Sens. Franken and Rockefeller

There was a time, in the early 1990s, when health insurance companies devoted more than 95 cents out of every premium dollar to paying doctors and hospitals for taking care of their members. No more. Since President Bill Clinton's health reform plan died 15 years ago, the health insurance industry has come to be dominated by a handful of insurance companies that answer to Wall Street investors, and they have changed that basic math. Today, insurers only pay about 81 cents of each premium dollar on actual medical care. The rest is consumed by rising profits, grotesque executive salaries, huge administrative expenses, the cost of weeding out people with pre-existing conditions and claims review designed to wear out patients with denials and disapprovals of the care they need the most.

This equation is known as the medical loss ratio (MLR), an aptly named figure that is widely seen by investors as the most important gauge of an insurance company's current and future profitability. In a private health insurance industry that collected $817 billion this year, a 14 percentage point difference in the MLR represents $112 billion a year! Over 10 years, that would be more than enough to pay for health reform.

Thanks to the efforts of several senators who pushed for a minimum MLR to be included in reform legislation, the current Senate bill requires insurers to provide an annual rebate to each enrollee if non-claims costs exceed 20% in the group market and 25% in the individual market.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank You, UnitedHealth Group. Your Jaw-Dropping Profit Announcement May Be Just What the Doctor Ordered.


The All-Important "Medical Loss Ratio"

During my years as a corporate executive at CIGNA, another one of the big for-profit insurers, one of the things I did was to explain to the financial media why the company's MLR went up or down during a specific period of time. There is constant pressure from investors and Wall Street analysts for insurance company executives to take whatever means are necessary to keep pushing the MLR lower and lower. If they don't succeed, they get punished, often severely, in the stock market. Aetna's stock price once fell more than 20% in a single day after executives disclosed that the company had spent slightly more on medical claims during the most recent quarter than in a previous period. What triggered the "sell" alarm was the company's announcement that its first quarter MLR increased to 79.4% from 77.9% the previous year.

Insurance company executives will never forget the beating that Aetna took that day. Not only did the company's market cap shrink, but so did the stock options held by Aetna's senior executives. The CEO alone lost millions in compensation by reporting an MLR that didn't meet Wall Street's expectations.

Insurance Companies Want to Keep the Champagne Corks Popping

That lesson certainly was not lost on United's executives. One of the main reasons why the company was able to exceed Wall Street's profit expectations for the third quarter that just ended was its ability to push its commercial-segment MLR, which comprises most of its customers, much lower than usual. It dropped a whopping 3.7 percentage points to 80.9%. United, and the other big for-profits, reported even bigger drops during the second quarter of this year. These are the results that bring out the champagne on Wall Street, when you reduce the amount you spend on medical care and make your customers pay more.

Insurers sent their lobbyists across the country to meet personally with the insurance commissioners (and lobbyists are as thick as thieves here in Orlando) because they want the commissioners to give them the slack they need to continue being able to push their MLRs down to what will be a legal minimum next year. The more they can get the commissioners to write the often obscure but critically important rules in their favor -- even if those rules violate the health care reform statute -- the happier it will make Wall Street. That is what is really going on here. It is as simple as that.

The timing of United's embarrassment of riches, however, is causing great concern on Wall Street. Investors and analysts are keeping up with what is going on in Orlando more than anyone except perhaps insurance company executives. They know that the commissioners are expected to complete their work on the MLR regulations Thursday morning and send their recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as the law stipulates. In a report Tuesday morning, Carl McDonald of Citigroup Investment Research wrote that United's impressive numbers "couldn't come at a worse time politically. We're at a critical time juncture, as the Health and Human Services Secretary will soon provide final minimum MLR guidance and decide how often to grant MLR waivers. United beating its initial earnings guidance this year by over $1.6 billion pre-tax certainly doesn't help the industry's cause."

NO Potter worked for CIGNA as former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA!
He was a disgruntled employee who DIDN"T have any contact with the financial aspects of how Cigna works!
He was a PR hack! A leading expert on modern corporate propaganda and its use by the public.

HE had NO where the knowledge of how Medicare works.
In fact he thinks Medicare processes claims just as you probably do!
WRONG!!
Up to 2003 when Modernization ACT which most people associate with Part D was enacted it streamlined from over 200 different contractors around the country in 50 states. Now there are less then 20 that bid on processing the 1 billion in claims and $ 983 billion in payments in 2010. Statistics Potter and much less obviously do you have any knowledge!
Yet this guy through his PR expertise (WHICH I don't have... I have detailed knowledge but not any media contacts like Potter) has been identified as an EXPERT! He is NOT about Medicare.. does have more knowledge about Cigna obviously then I do but he DOESN'T know nearly as much as I do about Medicare!

He is a PR hack and ALL MSM has made him the "expert" but he is full of crap!
He doesn't even know what the "medical liability ratio" is if you asked him!
Which by the way for MOST health insurance companies is 80% of Premiums paid out in claims.. and CIGNA
The real financial facts are insurance companies annually, every year pay out 80% to the providers
of the premiums they receive and this comes from their financial reports that if they lie they go to jail!
76.9% - Aetna
82.3% - Cigna
83.9% - Health Net
83.2% - Humana
78.6% - UnitedHealth Group

http://www.newamerica.net/blog/new-health-dialogue/2009/health-reform-medical-loss-ratio-or-just-medical-loss-15773

You didn't read a word Potter said. But that is not surprising. You didn't even read the article YOU posted that you used to rag on government.

Report: US health care system wastes $750B a year - Fort Lauderdale Business | Examiner.com

From YOUR article:

More than 18 months in the making, the report identified six major areas of waste: unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); inefficient delivery of care ($130 billion); excess administrative costs ($190 billion); inflated prices ($105 billion); prevention failures ($55 billion), and fraud ($75 billion). Adjusting for some overlap among the categories, the panel settled on an estimate of $750 billion.

Examples of wasteful care include most repeat colonoscopies within 10 years of a first such test, early imaging for most back pain, and brain scans for patients who fainted but didn't have seizures.

The report makes ten recommendations, including payment reforms to reward quality results instead of reimbursing for each procedure, improving coordination among different kinds of service providers, leveraging technology to reinforce sound clinical decisions and educating patients to become more savvy consumers.

The report's main message for government is to accelerate payment reforms, said panel chair Dr. Mark Smith, president of the California HealthCare Foundation, a research group. For employers, it's to move beyond cost shifts to workers and start demanding accountability from hospitals and major medical groups. For doctors, it means getting beyond the bubble of solo practice and collaborating with peers and other clinicians.

A) The thread topic was inability to subtract 42 million people COUNTED as UNINSURED that are :
1) 10 million not citizens.. 2) 14 million ALREADY covered 3) 18 million that PAY THEIR OWN health services out of pocket!!!
I further justified why Defensive Medicine estimated by physicians to be $600 billion a year comes from fear of lawsuits!
I then showed this report that provided further VALIDATION of my contention that the govt. and you obamacare supporters can't do math!

The report states: six major areas of waste the following that support my thread topic...
unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); AGAIN Defensive Medicine, duplicate tests out of fear of lawsuits!
inflated prices ($105 billion); AGAIN Medicare /private being OVERCHARGED sometimes 6,000% "padding and passing"!
excess administrative costs ($190 billion); last time we had "govt. reform" it has cost just in HIPAA alone $40 billion in admin costs!

But YOU can't even stay on topic that's how scattered you are!
Please refute the facts the thread topic i.e. people like you can't do simple math..
50 million SAID to be uninsured and common knowledge USED to pass by just 6 votes Obamacare!
42 million made up of 10 million non-citizens, 14 million ALREADY covered by Medicaid & 18 million that ALREADY pay out of pocket health services!
8 Million that truly need coverage but because Obama wants Government to totally control from womb to tomb he's destroying health care as we know it!

 

[Bfgrn]

NO Potter worked for CIGNA as former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA!
He was a disgruntled employee who DIDN"T have any contact with the financial aspects of how Cigna works!
He was a PR hack! A leading expert on modern corporate propaganda and its use by the public.

HE had NO where the knowledge of how Medicare works.
In fact he thinks Medicare processes claims just as you probably do!
WRONG!!
Up to 2003 when Modernization ACT which most people associate with Part D was enacted it streamlined from over 200 different contractors around the country in 50 states. Now there are less then 20 that bid on processing the 1 billion in claims and $ 983 billion in payments in 2010. Statistics Potter and much less obviously do you have any knowledge!
Yet this guy through his PR expertise (WHICH I don't have... I have detailed knowledge but not any media contacts like Potter) has been identified as an EXPERT! He is NOT about Medicare.. does have more knowledge about Cigna obviously then I do but he DOESN'T know nearly as much as I do about Medicare!

He is a PR hack and ALL MSM has made him the "expert" but he is full of crap!
He doesn't even know what the "medical liability ratio" is if you asked him!
Which by the way for MOST health insurance companies is 80% of Premiums paid out in claims.. and CIGNA
The real financial facts are insurance companies annually, every year pay out 80% to the providers
of the premiums they receive and this comes from their financial reports that if they lie they go to jail!
76.9% - Aetna
82.3% - Cigna
83.9% - Health Net
83.2% - Humana
78.6% - UnitedHealth Group

http://www.newamerica.net/blog/new-health-dialogue/2009/health-reform-medical-loss-ratio-or-just-medical-loss-15773

You didn't read a word Potter said. But that is not surprising. You didn't even read the article YOU posted that you used to rag on government.

Report: US health care system wastes $750B a year - Fort Lauderdale Business | Examiner.com

From YOUR article:

More than 18 months in the making, the report identified six major areas of waste: unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); inefficient delivery of care ($130 billion); excess administrative costs ($190 billion); inflated prices ($105 billion); prevention failures ($55 billion), and fraud ($75 billion). Adjusting for some overlap among the categories, the panel settled on an estimate of $750 billion.

Examples of wasteful care include most repeat colonoscopies within 10 years of a first such test, early imaging for most back pain, and brain scans for patients who fainted but didn't have seizures.

The report makes ten recommendations, including payment reforms to reward quality results instead of reimbursing for each procedure, improving coordination among different kinds of service providers, leveraging technology to reinforce sound clinical decisions and educating patients to become more savvy consumers.

The report's main message for government is to accelerate payment reforms, said panel chair Dr. Mark Smith, president of the California HealthCare Foundation, a research group. For employers, it's to move beyond cost shifts to workers and start demanding accountability from hospitals and major medical groups. For doctors, it means getting beyond the bubble of solo practice and collaborating with peers and other clinicians.

A) The thread topic was inability to subtract 42 million people COUNTED as UNINSURED that are :
1) 10 million not citizens.. 2) 14 million ALREADY covered 3) 18 million that PAY THEIR OWN health services out of pocket!!!
I further justified why Defensive Medicine estimated by physicians to be $600 billion a year comes from fear of lawsuits!
I then showed this report that provided further VALIDATION of my contention that the govt. and you obamacare supporters can't do math!

The report states: six major areas of waste the following that support my thread topic...
unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); AGAIN Defensive Medicine, duplicate tests out of fear of lawsuits!
inflated prices ($105 billion); AGAIN Medicare /private being OVERCHARGED sometimes 6,000% "padding and passing"!
excess administrative costs ($190 billion); last time we had "govt. reform" it has cost just in HIPAA alone $40 billion in admin costs!

But YOU can't even stay on topic that's how scattered you are!
Please refute the facts the thread topic i.e. people like you can't do simple math..
50 million SAID to be uninsured and common knowledge USED to pass by just 6 votes Obamacare!
42 million made up of 10 million non-citizens, 14 million ALREADY covered by Medicaid & 18 million that ALREADY pay out of pocket health services!
8 Million that truly need coverage but because Obama wants Government to totally control from womb to tomb he's destroying health care as we know it!

You have already been exposed as a fraud on other threads, but you keep parroting the same propaganda. You are not an advocate for affordable health care, you are a shill for insurance cartels, doctors and hospitals; the people who are really responsible for our bludgeoning health care costs.

You never answered your fatally flawed math on another thread, so I will ask you again to explain it...

In 2008 Radiologists sent 151,703,266 claims for services to Medicare.
The total sent was $10.3 billion Medicare paid 78% of that or $8.02 billion!
FACT look it up as I DID!!! IDIOT

SOURCE: CMS/Office of Information Products and Data Analytics

So again explain WHY CMS (Medicare to you!) continued to report that the
they PAY 6,000% markups??

Tell me what city you live in and I'll show you what kind of markup that hospital charges Medicare!!!

If CMS is your source, WHY don't you provide a link? Do you have copies of the bills sent to Medicare, because when you DO THE MATH...the average claim is $67.89

10,300,000,000 / 151,703,266 = 67.89570371

 

[California Girl]

Let me explain something.

If you go to the "Emergency Room", the cost is anywhere from 10 to hundreds of times the cost of going to a clinic or a doctor. That cost is passed on to the tax payers.

People using the Emergency Room as their primary source of health care were bankrupting Massachusetts. This was why Mitt Romney started Romneycare.

Normally, Romney would be able to run on this creation which has helped the state avoid financial disaster, but the right wing is too ******* stupid because of their blind hatred for this president. They even think health care is a "bad" thing because of their undying loyalty to bigotry and hatred and their worship of "dumbfuck". We can't change them. But they are getting old. Too bad we have to give them "health care".

I am shocked. Rdean is hoping for the deaths of his fellow Americans... while, at the same time, falsely accusing conservatives of doing just that.

Such hypocrisy!

I am shocked.

Shocked.

Shocked, I tell ya!

 

[Ernie S.]

Seriously, is healthmyths retarded?

You are far from the best judge of who is and who isn't retarded.