Nothing is free including healthcare

[JimJones]

Reports from the non-partisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) released their preliminary cost estimates of the healthcare legislation, which was written by Ted Kennedy and not President Obama. The CBO finds that the Kennedy bill will cost $1.2Trillion dollars. The CBO is saying that as many as 10 Million people will lose their private healthcare coverage, so the total amount covered in this bill is 16 million people. There are currently 46 Million people that don’t have coverage. I’m sure you can do the math to add up how much it would cost to add everyone on to this plan.

The CBO was only reviewing title 1 of the bill. What’s missing is the administrative cost that the federal government will have to run this type of system. Also, missing is the cost for the IT infrastructure to house all of our healthcare records. CBO also hasn’t finished modeling all the provisions, which means these numbers fall very short of what the reality really is.

Since when are American’s entitled to anything more then life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Obama believes, as well as many others in our government that all American’s are “entitled” to healthcare. The American people are in need of affordable healthcare, but as many of us have learned over the years, nothing is free.

Joe the plumber confronted Obama about spreading the wealth. Now with healthcare, Obama is attempting to spread the wealth of coverage from those who have, to those who have not. It is estimated that about 46 Million people living in the U.S. do not have any type of healthcare coverage. Out of the 46 Million, how many of them are illegal aliens? My guess would be close to 17 Million. Are you prepared to down grade your coverage and pay for illegal’s that aren’t even suppose to be here? That’s right, I said down grade. The Kennedy bill promotes the removal of your healthcare tax deduction to help increase tax revenues. Is you’re employer going to afford to pick up the difference? Most likely not! Most American’s live paycheck to paycheck and will be forced to drop some part of their healthcare policies to afford their coverage. If they can’t afford their coverage, they can switch over to the government run national coverage. The problem here is that many will have no choice but to switch over do to cost, which will eventually drive the current insurance companies out of business. The private companies won’t be able to compete with the government on the same price-point level. After all, the insurance companies can’t print money like the Federal Reserve Bank.

Let’s talk about those American that would rather not work and stay home doing hard drugs such as crack and heroin. We already indirectly give these people money. It’s done through food stamps, section 8 housing, and treatment centers to name a few. How can we be expected to hand over our hard earned tax dollars to someone that won’t even try to help themselves? After all said and done, what’s left is probably 10 Million American’s that actually do need help.

We keep hearing the cost of Information Technology housing our medical records in a centralized location will provide mass savings. Well if you take the up front cost of all the servers needed, consulting hours to build such a software application, not including the implementation cost, we are looking at Billions of dollars that will have to be spent up front. Add this cost to the few Trillion dollars to insure and you have a mound of debt we can’t recover from. The sad thing is I didn’t even mention the cost of the security of the software and network infrastructure. Hackers got into both Obama and McCain’s laptops during the campaign. How will they be stopped from taking our medical records and selling them as lists on the online marketplace? What, my mistake, Obama just added a new internet Czar.

What funny about all this IT stuff and why we need it has nothing to do with savings or better care. It has everything to do with control. Some of you might already know that it’s already a common practice in most medical companies to transmit claims to the insurance companies for payment via the internet.

We currently borrow exactly .46 cents of every dollar spent this year. We are already obligated to $5.0 Trillion dollars of interest payments over the next 5 years. How can we afford to make these changes on a healthcare plan that is being rushed through the system, a plan that is unproven, and government controlled? I think we all know that anything that our government touches turns to crap. Are you prepared to put your life in the hands of a Politian? I’m not!

-JimJones
www.BorderlineIQ.com
Jim Jones (BorderlineIQ) on Twitter

 

[auditor0007]

Since when are American’s entitled to anything more then life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Obama believes, as well as many others in our government that all American’s are “entitled” to healthcare. The American people are in need of affordable healthcare, but as many of us have learned over the years, nothing is free.

Without healthcare, life may not be considered entitled for many. It is also nearly impossible for some people to pursue their happiness when they can't receive treatment for their illness.

 

[JimJones]

Since when are American’s entitled to anything more then life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Obama believes, as well as many others in our government that all American’s are “entitled” to healthcare. The American people are in need of affordable healthcare, but as many of us have learned over the years, nothing is free.

Without healthcare, life may not be considered entitled for many. It is also nearly impossible for some people to pursue their happiness when they can't receive treatment for their illness.

I'm not saying we have a perfect system. However, people should not be entitled to the fruits of my labor. Something Thomas Jefferson believed.
With Medicare/Medicade/and the ER people do get treated. Actually treated faster then they would be in Canada or the UK with better care. We in America do not need to redesign a new system, we need to gain control of the insurance companies that are playing doctor right now, which also have a bennifit to driving up cost. Instead we're going to let our government play doctor? That doesn't sit well with me.

 

[RodISHI]

Who pays the bill when a drug addict, illegal, bum, uninsured of any type goes into the emergency room now?

 

[Annie]

I sincerely believe that the reliance on 'insurance' for every ailment-no matter how small, has driven up the cost of health care. Also malpractice insurance, due to out of control 'pain & suffering' payments where a whole family benefits off the suffering of one and the deep pockets of insurance and doctors.

There should be caps on 'p & s' and insurance should be limited to hospitalization costs. If people have to pay out of pocket, physicians once again could limit tests to only those necessary. They would have much more time and fewer employees if not for all the forms/documentation required by the insurance companies. Costs for lab work would diminish, as demand for unnecessary tests would stop. People would stop asking for the most heavily advertised of the day.

 

[RodISHI]

Government; Data Table; Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement Data Table
Table 7. Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement, State and local government workers, National Compensation Survey, March 2008

Average for all workers $399.86

Private; Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement Data Table
Table 7. Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement, private industry workers, National Compensation Survey, March 2008

Average for all workers $309.03

Civilian; Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement Data Table
Table 7. Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement, civilian workers, 1 National Compensation Survey, March 2008

100 employees Average for all workers $326.95



The government employees medical insurance cost on an average cost tax payers $90.00 more per month according to these surveys conducted by The United States Labor Department.

We have approximately 21 million government employees in the US as of 2008. You can all do the math.

 

[auditor0007]

Reports from the non-partisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) released their preliminary cost estimates of the healthcare legislation, which was written by Ted Kennedy and not President Obama. The CBO finds that the Kennedy bill will cost $1.2Trillion dollars. The CBO is saying that as many as 10 Million people will lose their private healthcare coverage, so the total amount covered in this bill is 16 million people. There are currently 46 Million people that don’t have coverage. I’m sure you can do the math to add up how much it would cost to add everyone on to this plan.

The CBO was only reviewing title 1 of the bill. What’s missing is the administrative cost that the federal government will have to run this type of system. Also, missing is the cost for the IT infrastructure to house all of our healthcare records. CBO also hasn’t finished modeling all the provisions, which means these numbers fall very short of what the reality really is.

Since when are American’s entitled to anything more then life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Obama believes, as well as many others in our government that all American’s are “entitled” to healthcare. The American people are in need of affordable healthcare, but as many of us have learned over the years, nothing is free.

Joe the plumber confronted Obama about spreading the wealth. Now with healthcare, Obama is attempting to spread the wealth of coverage from those who have, to those who have not. It is estimated that about 46 Million people living in the U.S. do not have any type of healthcare coverage. Out of the 46 Million, how many of them are illegal aliens? My guess would be close to 17 Million. Are you prepared to down grade your coverage and pay for illegal’s that aren’t even suppose to be here? That’s right, I said down grade. The Kennedy bill promotes the removal of your healthcare tax deduction to help increase tax revenues. Is you’re employer going to afford to pick up the difference? Most likely not! Most American’s live paycheck to paycheck and will be forced to drop some part of their healthcare policies to afford their coverage. If they can’t afford their coverage, they can switch over to the government run national coverage. The problem here is that many will have no choice but to switch over do to cost, which will eventually drive the current insurance companies out of business. The private companies won’t be able to compete with the government on the same price-point level. After all, the insurance companies can’t print money like the Federal Reserve Bank.

Let’s talk about those American that would rather not work and stay home doing hard drugs such as crack and heroin. We already indirectly give these people money. It’s done through food stamps, section 8 housing, and treatment centers to name a few. How can we be expected to hand over our hard earned tax dollars to someone that won’t even try to help themselves? After all said and done, what’s left is probably 10 Million American’s that actually do need help.

We keep hearing the cost of Information Technology housing our medical records in a centralized location will provide mass savings. Well if you take the up front cost of all the servers needed, consulting hours to build such a software application, not including the implementation cost, we are looking at Billions of dollars that will have to be spent up front. Add this cost to the few Trillion dollars to insure and you have a mound of debt we can’t recover from. The sad thing is I didn’t even mention the cost of the security of the software and network infrastructure. Hackers got into both Obama and McCain’s laptops during the campaign. How will they be stopped from taking our medical records and selling them as lists on the online marketplace? What, my mistake, Obama just added a new internet Czar.

What funny about all this IT stuff and why we need it has nothing to do with savings or better care. It has everything to do with control. Some of you might already know that it’s already a common practice in most medical companies to transmit claims to the insurance companies for payment via the internet.

We currently borrow exactly .46 cents of every dollar spent this year. We are already obligated to $5.0 Trillion dollars of interest payments over the next 5 years. How can we afford to make these changes on a healthcare plan that is being rushed through the system, a plan that is unproven, and government controlled? I think we all know that anything that our government touches turns to crap. Are you prepared to put your life in the hands of a Politian? I’m not!

-JimJones
www.BorderlineIQ.com
Jim Jones (BorderlineIQ) on Twitter

Government; Data Table; Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement Data Table
Table 7. Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement, State and local government workers, National Compensation Survey, March 2008

Average for all workers $399.86

Private; Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement Data Table
Table 7. Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement, private industry workers, National Compensation Survey, March 2008

Average for all workers $309.03

Civilian; Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement Data Table
Table 7. Medical plans, single coverage: Employer and employee premiums by employee contribution requirement, civilian workers, 1 National Compensation Survey, March 2008

100 employees Average for all workers $326.95



The government employees medical insurance cost on an average cost tax payers $90.00 more per month according to these surveys conducted by The United States Labor Department.

We have approximately 21 million government employees in the US as of 2008. You can all do the math.

That quite simply is due to the fact that the government employee plans are far too generous. While private employers continue to try reducing their costs by purchasing policies with higher deductibles and more out of pocket expense to the employee, the insurance for government employees has kept deductibles much lower.

 

[HUGGY]

Nothing is free including healthcare [/B

Neo cons take us to war like it's free.

Single payer isn't free but it's just.

If you claim to be a christian you had better get right with the concept of healing.

 

[RodISHI]

That quite simply is due to the fact that the government employee plans are far too generous. While private employers continue to try reducing their costs by purchasing policies with higher deductibles and more out of pocket expense to the employee, the insurance for government employees has kept deductibles much lower.

Makes sense that would account for the cost difference. Although the tables reflect employee expenses for coverage. I'm looking for the medicaid and medicare statistics. I found one for 2006 that has 36 million on medicaid and medicare. If that is correct we have at least 57 million people covered with medical care of some type by taxpayers already.

I'm also looking for a cost on building small hospital clinics? I've said this already once on here, Rod received excellent care at the VA hospital here. I know others have had problems but in Des Moines they had an excellent care program when he went there.

If the taxpayer is already paying for this many people it would make sense for the government to help build actual not for profit health clinics throughout the country and integrate the people that are not covered into that system via a single payer program that is affordable. They could allow employers to participate in the same program at will.

 

[RodISHI]

1.5 million in nursing homes in 2004. 2006 breakdown http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nnhsd/nursinghomefacilities2006.pdf


Emergency Department Visit Data

HHS.gov Research, statistics, data and systems

Charts download; Medicare & Medicaid Statistical Supplement

Highlights from 21 pages;

"BRIEF SUMMARIES of MEDICARE & MEDICAID Title XVIII and Title XIX of The Social Security Act as of November 1, 2002"

"Together, Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP financed $429 billion in health care services in 2000—one-third of the country’s total health care bill and almost three-fourths of all public spending on health care. Since their enactment, both Medicare and Medicaid have been subject to numerous legislative and administrative changes designed to make improvements in the provision of health care services to our nation’s aged, disabled, and disadvantaged."

"Projected Expenditures
National health expenditures are projected to total $2.8 trillion in 2011, growing at a mean annual rate of 7.3 percent during the forecast period 2001-2011. During this period health spending is expected to grow 2.5 percent per year faster than nominal gross domestic product, so that by 2011 it will constitute approximately 17 percent of GDP, up from its 2000 level of 13.2 percent."


More than 40 million persons received health care services through the Medicaid program in fiscal year (FY) 1999 (the last year for which beneficiary data are available). In FY 2001, total outlays for the Medicaid program (Federal and State) were $227.8 billion, including direct payment to providers of $162.6 billion, payments for various premiums (for HMOs, Medicare, etc.) of $37.6 billion, payments to disproportionate share hospitals of $15.9 billion, and administrative costs of $11.7 billion. Outlays under the SCHIP program in FY 2001 were $3.8 billion. With no changes to either program, expenditures under Medicaid and SCHIP are projected to reach $394 billion and $7.2 billion, respectively, by FY 2007.

 

[WillowTree]

Unless the "progressive tax" is done away with health care will be free for the 50% of Americans who do not pay Federal Income Tax and roughly half of Mexico. The other 50% of us will pay for their "free health care."

 

[JimJones]

That quite simply is due to the fact that the government employee plans are far too generous. While private employers continue to try reducing their costs by purchasing policies with higher deductibles and more out of pocket expense to the employee, the insurance for government employees has kept deductibles much lower.

Makes sense that would account for the cost difference. Although the tables reflect employee expenses for coverage. I'm looking for the medicaid and medicare statistics. I found one for 2006 that has 36 million on medicaid and medicare. If that is correct we have at least 57 million people covered with medical care of some type by taxpayers already.

I'm also looking for a cost on building small hospital clinics? I've said this already once on here, Rod received excellent care at the VA hospital here. I know others have had problems but in Des Moines they had an excellent care program when he went there.

If the taxpayer is already paying for this many people it would make sense for the government to help build actual not for profit health clinics throughout the country and integrate the people that are not covered into that system via a single payer program that is affordable. They could allow employers to participate in the same program at will.

not for profit health clinics throughout the country - the government already tried that with blue cross blue sheild and they went private to make more money as they were gaining to much debt vs revenue. Medicare is a freaking joke (as to how it's run) SO MUCH WASTE...They do pay doctors at a rate that was set back in 2001,which is why some doctors wont take medicare anymore. Bottom line, our healthcare system works but insurance needs to be more affordable for small business. Adding the ability to get insurance across state lines and opening up compitiion to compete for price like the McCain plan outlined was a great idea.

 

[JimJones]

Unless the "progressive tax" is done away with health care will be free for the 50% of Americans who do not pay Federal Income Tax and roughly half of Mexico. The other 50% of us will pay for their "free health care."

thanks willowtree....thats exactly my point!

 

[editec]

The current HC crises is screwing up this nation economically.

Solving it is going to do much to get this nation working again.

I do not have a solution, and every solution will bring with it new problems, but if we do nothing I promise you things are going to get much worse than they are already.

 

[Political Junky]

Since when are American’s entitled to anything more then life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Obama believes, as well as many others in our government that all American’s are “entitled” to healthcare. The American people are in need of affordable healthcare, but as many of us have learned over the years, nothing is free.

Without healthcare, life may not be considered entitled for many. It is also nearly impossible for some people to pursue their happiness when they can't receive treatment for their illness.

Yes, to suggest one is not entitled to healthcare is ludicrous. Remember the Good Samaritan?

 

[Oddball]

Yes, to suggest one is not entitled to healthcare is ludicrous. Remember the Good Samaritan?

Who held a gun to the Good Samaritan's head??

 

[editec]

Yes, to suggest one is not entitled to healthcare is ludicrous. Remember the Good Samaritan?

Who held a gun to the Good Samaritan's head??

The uber-liberal Samaritan, naturally.

 

[DiamondDave]

1) Healthcare is not free.. nor SHOULD it be free to some at the expense of others
2) Your personal care is your personal responsibility
3) Taxation is more on some than others, and those who pay lesser or no tax would be getting this 'entitlement' towards their personal care at the expense of those who do pay
4) When monies are taken from one individual and not another to provide benefits to both, the quality of care that can be has is inherently less overall
5) What Obama and others say about his 'solution' adding 'competition' is utter horse shit. Adding 1 more player is not going to add competition in a market where there are indeed MANY MANY players... unless the new player intends on taking a huge advantage, which the government can do because it controls the standards and laws. Do not think for a minute that that is not in the back of the minds of those trying to pass increased governmental healthcare
6) We DO have the highest quality health system in the world. Period. (And no, don't break out the bullshit WHO rankings with subjective 'feeling' based 'fairness' rankings). And it is accessible to everyone. There is no discrimination in what you can obtain in treatment. But much like everything else in life, you can't always get what you want, and certainly you are not owed it by everyone else. You want it, you earn it, you pay for it, you do what you need to to get it.

There are things to improve... getting to government further out and getting rid of bullshit laws that limit competition.... or access to more people with more choices by letting more groups approach health insurers and providers to negotiate group rates.. reforming malpractice law and lawsuits... the list goes on...

but red tape infused government healthcare, paid for by the taxpayers and offered to those who don't even pay for it through taxation, is not the answer AT ALL...

 

[DiamondDave]

Without healthcare, life may not be considered entitled for many. It is also nearly impossible for some people to pursue their happiness when they can't receive treatment for their illness.

Yes, to suggest one is not entitled to healthcare is ludicrous. Remember the Good Samaritan?

The key to a good Samaritan is doing it of your own free will and with your heart... you wish to donate to charities (I whole heartedly suggest donating to St. Jude's as I do), more power to you... if you wish to help others with those actions I applaud you... but you, nor anyone else, is entitled to having your personal wants and needs supplied at the expense of others... you are not owed a goddamn thing.. you want it, fucking earn it

 

[Political Junky]

Yes, to suggest one is not entitled to healthcare is ludicrous. Remember the Good Samaritan?

Who held a gun to the Good Samaritan's head??

The uber-liberal Samaritan, naturally.

So much for right wing claims to be morally superior.