Making Health Insurance Companies Illegal Will Solve Everything?

[Arianrhod]

Private insurance is the way it should be done.

So you've flip-flopped. You no longer want the government to "make insurance illegal." Okay.

Yeah, can't possibly work.

Direct Primary Care - Cash Only Doctors Say No to Your Health Insuranc... - AARP


Pay Flat Fees to Doctors With Direct Primary Care

I didn't realize this forum was populated by millionaires:

Annual Costs of Cancer Care | Cancer Prevalence and Cost of Care Projections

I never said make insurance illegal. I said keep the government out of mandating it and forcing one group to fund it for another. Private insurance is what I've supported. Your claims otherwise are incorrect.

Interesting rewording of your original statement. No secret you'd want to destroy Medicaid, but Medicare as well? Are your parents still living? I take it you'd be paying their medical expenses if you got your wish.

 

[Pop23]

I've posted a model used to reduce the cost of health care, and your response seems to be, there can't possibly be a reasonable way to reduce health care expense because it's expensive now.

So either you can afford 21K a year to pay for cancer treatment, or you don't understand the process of cancer treatment and what costs it entails. Or possibly both.

Here's another:

MS: The Basics : Rocky Mountain MS Center

So how wealthy are you?

I have an enormous wealth of experience.

My checkbook is none of your business

Have you explained yet the reason Cancer treatments are so expensive yet?

The administrative costs, the reason it appears that these MD's have so many more assets than the patients they treat?

 

[threegoofs]

So Medicare and Medicaid need to be abolished? Good luck with that.

Or do you mean there should be no regulation of the healthcare industry? Anything goes? Eliminate the FDA and hope for the best?

There is a difference between regulation for safety and forcing one group to fund healthcare for another group.

Well, the statement 'keep the government out of healthcare' is pretty broad. And would, for example, patent protection on drugs be in your now narrower definition?

I assume Medicare is. How would you propose the elderly get health insurance, given the fact that almost by definition, the only people who can fund insurance for the elderly (which consumes a massive amount of health care) is almost by definition 'another group'?

Or didnt you think that far?

Since I understand the difference between regulation for safety and mandating funding by one group for another, I saw no need to make that distinction. Perhaps I should have for those unable to make the distinction.

I propose anyone that needs insurance and can't afford it find someone to provide it for them. If my parents, both of whom are near 80, need something, it's provided by the family. That's how it was done until the government decided to get it on it. It worked far longer to do it that way than the government has been involved. It also worked better.

So you post some general statement and think that you dont need to describe it, even though its pretty damn clear you are backtracking on it with every post.

Well,what would happen if you werent around? Are your parents going to just be taken care of by charity? Because that system didnt work real well at the turn of the last century, and in fact the elderly healthcare system, especially for the poor, worked SO badly that by the time modern medicine, with its expensive tests and treatments came around in the 60s, Medicare was necessary to pass.

So if (actually, when, really) you're parents get hospitalized with their final illness, and the medical bills turn out to be a half million each (not an unreasonable charge for a course of cancer treatment, or an extensive ICU stay), when will you cut them off? The first 100k? The first 500k?

Given the fact that most elderly people will not be able to pay for their health care since they tend not to be well off, you need to have some type of system unless you're OK with most elderly dying off in their 70s, after they have impoverished their children.

I know the difference between regulation and financial mandates.

Typical what if argument. How about dealing in reality rather than hypotheticals.

I'll take care of mine and you can take care of yours. If you can't, it's not my place to be forced to do it for you or anyone else.

LOL. Those are not hypotheticals.

Not many elderly are going to be able to pay for their healthcare, and not many will have kids that can pay for it either- it might have sorta worked in 1910, but not in a modern society.

Your proposal will lead to a significant reduction in both quality of life and lifespan of the US population, and a return to the days that cancer, or heart failure was pretty much a death sentence (even though now we have treatments that will be out of reach, and the incentive to discover more will evaporate since no one can pay).


You clearly have a pathetic comprehension of modern health care, Western society, and the consequences of your Conservative ideas.

 

[Pop23]

Having safety nets, while treating basic Heath care as an individual responsibilty are not mutually exclusive.

I've said it before. How much more of this do you expect my wallet to finance for you?

 

[Arianrhod]

Having safety nets, while treating basic Heath care as an individual responsibilty are not mutually exclusive.

Thank you.

I've said it before. How much more of this do you expect my wallet to finance for you?

You're not financing me personally. But I think you'll find that, over time, you'll see a smaller bite taken out of your finances relative to the PPACA.

Now, if only there were something you and I together could do about the fact that Sam Walton's grandchildren - whose idea of "work" is to sit on a few board meetings every year - just got a $6 billion dollar tax break, in addition to the $6.2 billion in public assistance their employees receive: Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance

we'd be making real progress.

 

[Conservative65]

There is a difference between regulation for safety and forcing one group to fund healthcare for another group.

Well, the statement 'keep the government out of healthcare' is pretty broad. And would, for example, patent protection on drugs be in your now narrower definition?

I assume Medicare is. How would you propose the elderly get health insurance, given the fact that almost by definition, the only people who can fund insurance for the elderly (which consumes a massive amount of health care) is almost by definition 'another group'?

Or didnt you think that far?

Since I understand the difference between regulation for safety and mandating funding by one group for another, I saw no need to make that distinction. Perhaps I should have for those unable to make the distinction.

I propose anyone that needs insurance and can't afford it find someone to provide it for them. If my parents, both of whom are near 80, need something, it's provided by the family. That's how it was done until the government decided to get it on it. It worked far longer to do it that way than the government has been involved. It also worked better.

So you post some general statement and think that you dont need to describe it, even though its pretty damn clear you are backtracking on it with every post.

Well,what would happen if you werent around? Are your parents going to just be taken care of by charity? Because that system didnt work real well at the turn of the last century, and in fact the elderly healthcare system, especially for the poor, worked SO badly that by the time modern medicine, with its expensive tests and treatments came around in the 60s, Medicare was necessary to pass.

So if (actually, when, really) you're parents get hospitalized with their final illness, and the medical bills turn out to be a half million each (not an unreasonable charge for a course of cancer treatment, or an extensive ICU stay), when will you cut them off? The first 100k? The first 500k?

Given the fact that most elderly people will not be able to pay for their health care since they tend not to be well off, you need to have some type of system unless you're OK with most elderly dying off in their 70s, after they have impoverished their children.

I know the difference between regulation and financial mandates.

Typical what if argument. How about dealing in reality rather than hypotheticals.

I'll take care of mine and you can take care of yours. If you can't, it's not my place to be forced to do it for you or anyone else.

LOL. Those are not hypotheticals.

Not many elderly are going to be able to pay for their healthcare, and not many will have kids that can pay for it either- it might have sorta worked in 1910, but not in a modern society.

Your proposal will lead to a significant reduction in both quality of life and lifespan of the US population, and a return to the days that cancer, or heart failure was pretty much a death sentence (even though now we have treatments that will be out of reach, and the incentive to discover more will evaporate since no one can pay).


You clearly have a pathetic comprehension of modern health care, Western society, and the consequences of your Conservative ideas.

When you start a sentence with "what if . . ", it's a hypothetical.

You clearly have a pathetic comprehension of personal responsibility and the concept that people are responsible to take care of themselves rather than demanding someone else do it for them.

 

[Conservative65]

Private insurance is the way it should be done.

So you've flip-flopped. You no longer want the government to "make insurance illegal." Okay.

Yeah, can't possibly work.

Direct Primary Care - Cash Only Doctors Say No to Your Health Insuranc... - AARP


Pay Flat Fees to Doctors With Direct Primary Care

I didn't realize this forum was populated by millionaires:

Annual Costs of Cancer Care | Cancer Prevalence and Cost of Care Projections

I never said make insurance illegal. I said keep the government out of mandating it and forcing one group to fund it for another. Private insurance is what I've supported. Your claims otherwise are incorrect.

Interesting rewording of your original statement. No secret you'd want to destroy Medicaid, but Medicare as well? Are your parents still living? I take it you'd be paying their medical expenses if you got your wish.

Medicaid is another handout program.

My parents are still living. The insurance they purchase pays most of their medical bills. My dad was able to continue buying his insurance through the company from which he retired. They take personal responsibility for themselves. Wish you would support everyone doing that.

What's going to be your excuse now?

 

[Arianrhod]

Medicaid is another handout program.

So "let 'em eat cake," huh?

My parents are still living. The insurance they purchase pays most of their medical bills. My dad was able to continue buying his insurance through the company from which he retired. They take personal responsibility for themselves.

Through a subsidy from your dad's company, which subsidizes your mom as well.

That's great. They're fortunate. If your dad had worked for Enron, he'd have lost his pension, his stock options, and any possible health coverage.

It's the absolute resistance to the word "subsidy" from the offspring that I find amusing.

 

[Conservative65]

Medicaid is another handout program.

So "let 'em eat cake," huh?

My parents are still living. The insurance they purchase pays most of their medical bills. My dad was able to continue buying his insurance through the company from which he retired. They take personal responsibility for themselves.

Through a subsidy from your dad's company, which subsidizes your mom as well.

That's great. They're fortunate. If your dad had worked for Enron, he'd have lost his pension, his stock options, and any possible health coverage.

It's the absolute resistance to the word "subsidy" from the offspring that I find amusing.

It's the absolute idiocy you have to the difference between compensation, even through retirement, and a subsidy. My dad earned the ability to continue to buy insurance. You assume his coverage is subsidized. I plainly stated he purchases it.

That's not fortunate because being fortunate involves luck. He EARNED it. Why is that so hard for you to believe some people actually do something for what they get instead of the social welfare leeches you so proudly honor.

 

[westwall]

This is a statement made by a poster in this forum, who believes that private health insurance needs to be abolished by law and, apparently, nothing put in its place.

Clearly this would involve the government taking action to disband all insurance corporations nationwide (IIRC, something similar happened overseas in 1917) and then somehow, according to this poster, the costs of medical care would be drastically reduced.

As the poster who made this claim was unable to provide any details of his Master Plan, I’m putting this to the entire forum:

• Is this something you’d like to see?
• If so, can you provide specifics as to how it would work?
• Or do you think it’s completely daft?

Any and all thoughts welcome.

The government needs to get out of the healthcare industry altogether. If you think someone without coverage should have it, buy it for them. However, the government shouldn't mandate one person funding it for another.

So Medicare and Medicaid need to be abolished? Good luck with that.

Or do you mean there should be no regulation of the healthcare industry? Anything goes? Eliminate the FDA and hope for the best?

They are abolishing themselves in my area. There is ONE dentist in all of Northern Nevada that will accept Medicare. The number of doctors that are refusing it is growing every day. The Feds are reducing payments to doctors to such low levels that they can't even pay their bills so why bother accepting the shit. I checked with my cardiologist and he won't accept it. No one in his office will. So, yeah...everyone can have free health care! Good luck finding someone who will accept it!


"Andy Pasternak, a family doctor in Reno, saw more than 100 new Medicaid patients last year after the state expanded the insurance program for the poor under the Affordable Care Act.

But he won't be taking any new ones this year. That's because the law's two-year pay raise for primary care doctors like him who see Medicaid patients expired Wednesday, resulting in fee reductions of 43% on average across the country, according to the non-partisan Urban Institute.

"I don't want to do this," Pasternak said about his refusal to see additional Medicaid patients. But now that the temporary pay raise is gone, he and other Nevada doctors will see their fees drop from $75 on average to less than $50 for routine office visits.

"We will lose money when they come to the office," he said."



Doctors face big cuts in Medicaid pay

 

[Arianrhod]

It's the absolute idiocy you have to the difference between compensation, even through retirement, and a subsidy. My dad earned the ability to continue to buy insurance. You assume his coverage is subsidized. I plainly stated he purchases it.

If he'd gone to his boss and said "Look, I don't want health insurance. Give me the difference as an addition to my salary instead," would his boss have said "Sure, no problem"?

 

[Conservative65]

This is a statement made by a poster in this forum, who believes that private health insurance needs to be abolished by law and, apparently, nothing put in its place.

Clearly this would involve the government taking action to disband all insurance corporations nationwide (IIRC, something similar happened overseas in 1917) and then somehow, according to this poster, the costs of medical care would be drastically reduced.

As the poster who made this claim was unable to provide any details of his Master Plan, I’m putting this to the entire forum:

• Is this something you’d like to see?
• If so, can you provide specifics as to how it would work?
• Or do you think it’s completely daft?

Any and all thoughts welcome.

The government needs to get out of the healthcare industry altogether. If you think someone without coverage should have it, buy it for them. However, the government shouldn't mandate one person funding it for another.

So Medicare and Medicaid need to be abolished? Good luck with that.

Or do you mean there should be no regulation of the healthcare industry? Anything goes? Eliminate the FDA and hope for the best?

They are abolishing themselves in my area. There is ONE dentist in all of Northern Nevada that will accept Medicare. The number of doctors that are refusing it is growing every day. The Feds are reducing payments to doctors to such low levels that they can't even pay their bills so why bother accepting the shit. I checked with my cardiologist and he won't accept it. No one in his office will. So, yeah...everyone can have free health care! Good luck finding someone who will accept it!


"Andy Pasternak, a family doctor in Reno, saw more than 100 new Medicaid patients last year after the state expanded the insurance program for the poor under the Affordable Care Act.

But he won't be taking any new ones this year. That's because the law's two-year pay raise for primary care doctors like him who see Medicaid patients expired Wednesday, resulting in fee reductions of 43% on average across the country, according to the non-partisan Urban Institute.

"I don't want to do this," Pasternak said about his refusal to see additional Medicaid patients. But now that the temporary pay raise is gone, he and other Nevada doctors will see their fees drop from $75 on average to less than $50 for routine office visits.

"We will lose money when they come to the office," he said."



Doctors face big cuts in Medicaid pay

I changed doctors when the one I was seeing started taking Medicaid patients. The quality of care dropped because he had to see so many to make money.

The last time I saw him I had paid my copay of $40. A Medicaid patient came in with his mother. The copay for Medicaid patients was $3. When the mother was asked to pay it, you would have thought she was being robbed for everything she had. She raised hell about not having to pay it because her son was under 18. While the rest of us paid copays and what insurance didn't cover, this leech got it for nothing and fussed because she was asked to pay $3.

 

[Conservative65]

It's the absolute idiocy you have to the difference between compensation, even through retirement, and a subsidy. My dad earned the ability to continue to buy insurance. You assume his coverage is subsidized. I plainly stated he purchases it.

If he'd gone to his boss and said "Look, I don't want health insurance. Give me the difference as an addition to my salary instead," would his boss have said "Sure, no problem"?

Seems you don't know the difference between salary and compensation. It's not a wonder why you support social welfare programs. It's the only way your ass will ever have anything. Too bad it's really not yours but someone else's that was taken and handed to you.

 

[Arianrhod]

It's the absolute idiocy you have to the difference between compensation, even through retirement, and a subsidy. My dad earned the ability to continue to buy insurance. You assume his coverage is subsidized. I plainly stated he purchases it.

If he'd gone to his boss and said "Look, I don't want health insurance. Give me the difference as an addition to my salary instead," would his boss have said "Sure, no problem"?

Seems you don't know the difference between salary and compensation.

On the contrary, I understand the historic reasons why employers began offering health insurance in lieu of salaries at the end of WWII. The primary goal was not concern for employee wellbeing, but getting tax breaks.

I'm willing to bet you have no idea how much more your dad would have had to pay for individual coverage if his employer had decided to cut off access to the company group plan. That's something you might consider exploring...although the coverage available post PPACA would be different than it would have been prior to January 2014.

 

[Conservative65]

It's the absolute idiocy you have to the difference between compensation, even through retirement, and a subsidy. My dad earned the ability to continue to buy insurance. You assume his coverage is subsidized. I plainly stated he purchases it.

If he'd gone to his boss and said "Look, I don't want health insurance. Give me the difference as an addition to my salary instead," would his boss have said "Sure, no problem"?

Seems you don't know the difference between salary and compensation.

On the contrary, I understand the historic reasons why employers began offering health insurance in lieu of salaries at the end of WWII. The primary goal was not concern for employee wellbeing, but getting tax breaks.

I'm willing to bet you have no idea how much more your dad would have had to pay for individual coverage if his employer had decided to cut off access to the company group plan. That's something you might consider exploring...although the coverage available post PPACA would be different than it would have been prior to January 2014.

Moot point since they do offer it. No need to explore something that isn't pertinent.

 

[Pop23]

Having safety nets, while treating basic Heath care as an individual responsibilty are not mutually exclusive.

Thank you.

I've said it before. How much more of this do you expect my wallet to finance for you?

You're not financing me personally. But I think you'll find that, over time, you'll see a smaller bite taken out of your finances relative to the PPACA.

Now, if only there were something you and I together could do about the fact that Sam Walton's grandchildren - whose idea of "work" is to sit on a few board meetings every year - just got a $6 billion dollar tax break, in addition to the $6.2 billion in public assistance their employees receive: Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance

we'd be making real progress.

Not sure how the Waltons are involved in this, but nonetheless,

Healthcare has been gamed at nearly all levels, you won't cure it with government involvement, except by making those who game this important part of living, responsible for their excessive profiteering.

 

[threegoofs]

This is a statement made by a poster in this forum, who believes that private health insurance needs to be abolished by law and, apparently, nothing put in its place.

Clearly this would involve the government taking action to disband all insurance corporations nationwide (IIRC, something similar happened overseas in 1917) and then somehow, according to this poster, the costs of medical care would be drastically reduced.

As the poster who made this claim was unable to provide any details of his Master Plan, I’m putting this to the entire forum:

• Is this something you’d like to see?
• If so, can you provide specifics as to how it would work?
• Or do you think it’s completely daft?

Any and all thoughts welcome.

The government needs to get out of the healthcare industry altogether. If you think someone without coverage should have it, buy it for them. However, the government shouldn't mandate one person funding it for another.

So Medicare and Medicaid need to be abolished? Good luck with that.

Or do you mean there should be no regulation of the healthcare industry? Anything goes? Eliminate the FDA and hope for the best?

They are abolishing themselves in my area. There is ONE dentist in all of Northern Nevada that will accept Medicare. The number of doctors that are refusing it is growing every day. The Feds are reducing payments to doctors to such low levels that they can't even pay their bills so why bother accepting the shit. I checked with my cardiologist and he won't accept it. No one in his office will. So, yeah...everyone can have free health care! Good luck finding someone who will accept it!


"Andy Pasternak, a family doctor in Reno, saw more than 100 new Medicaid patients last year after the state expanded the insurance program for the poor under the Affordable Care Act.

But he won't be taking any new ones this year. That's because the law's two-year pay raise for primary care doctors like him who see Medicaid patients expired Wednesday, resulting in fee reductions of 43% on average across the country, according to the non-partisan Urban Institute.

"I don't want to do this," Pasternak said about his refusal to see additional Medicaid patients. But now that the temporary pay raise is gone, he and other Nevada doctors will see their fees drop from $75 on average to less than $50 for routine office visits.

"We will lose money when they come to the office," he said."



Doctors face big cuts in Medicaid pay

Yeah. We heard about how no doctors would take Medicare...in 1966.


Your story is about the 'doc fix'...that's the program Congress needs to authorize every so often because the GOP can't handle the budgetary consequences of making it permanent, and has no good plan of how to pay for something they agree with long term.


And Medicare doesn't cover dental services.

 

[Arianrhod]

Not sure how the Waltons are involved in this, but nonetheless...

Aside from their tendency to reduce employee hours to part-time so they don't have to offer health insurance...well, there's the fact that you guys don't seem to have any objection to their multi-billion dollar tax breaks, their multi-billion dollar "executive salaries," or the fact that they're major proponents of sending American jobs overseas just so they can sell you "cheap stuff."

You guys can't seem to see past the "cheap stuff" to figure out how much the Waltons are costing you in taxes.