Poll: Do you want the Federal governemnt running all healthcare?

[dblack]

The gov't enumerates and secures your rights.

No, it doesn't. It enumerates and establishes the powers of government. Your confusion is exactly why some of the founders were opposed to the Bill of Rights. They saw our rights as innumerable, and they worried that highlighting some of them via amendments to the Constitution would lead people to believe otherwise. Apparently, they were right.

Do you mean inalienable?

No. I mean innumerable. They can't be listed because the list would be infinite.

 

[Gornoodle]

When I receive a messed up billing from a doctor I want the government to run healthcare as their punishment.

I feel the same way

After my wife was hospitalized for a week I got a stack of bills demanding payment before my insurance had even settled. I ended up negotiating between the doctors and my insurance over payment. Out of network doctors would show up and treat my wife and then my insurance refused to pay them

I met a guy from UK once who told me he had open heart surgery. He said he just showed his ID card when he checked in and never received a bill

Plenty of problems with the UK NHS. But theirs should be much cheaper and easier to administer considering how geographically close the population is ( UK has twice the population density of New York).

U.K. Hospitals Are Overburdened, But The British Love Their Universal Health Care
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the U.K., like many countries, has been taking in less tax revenue — so it's had to cut spending. Its expenditure on the National Health Service has still grown, but at a slower pace than before. That means drugs are now being rationed. Tens of thousands of operations have been postponed this winter. Wait times at the emergency room are up, says Richard Murray, policy director at the King's Fund, a health care think tank.

Anyone who has ever been smothered with medical bills would appreciate universal healthcare

Look at how much time and money Doctors spend on billing insurance companies, negotiating payment, providing documentation, going after patients for nonpayment

Why would anyone prefer that method of insurance ?

It is more than the bills. our system limits freedom. If you want to change jobs, you risk going without health insurance for a requalifying period,. You also have to factor health insurance into the equation if you want to start your own business.
Health insurance costs go up every year outstripping inflation. Co-pays get bigger and you get coverage slashes. health insurance companies are in the denial of care business. They make more money by denying you the care you pay for. So they do,. Get sick and see how much they will fight you. When you are at your weakest, you have to fight to get your procedures covered. Our system is terrible.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The gov't enumerates and secures your rights.

No, it doesn't. It enumerates and establishes the powers of government. Your confusion is exactly why some of the founders were opposed to the Bill of Rights. They saw our rights as innumerable, and they worried that highlighting some of them via amendments to the Constitution would lead people to believe otherwise. Apparently, they were right.

Do you mean inalienable? As in Thomas Jefferson (using the un- variant) wrote that all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" including "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. If so those rights, like all rights, are bestowed by higher powers, either God or government.

No, he means innumerable. Although they are also inalienable. Try to expand your mind past "I recognize THIS word, and have a quote that uses it".

Try THESE quotes on for size.

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

It means that our rights go far beyond just those specifically mentioned in the Constitution. They encompass anything which has not been specifically limited by law to protect the rights of others. They are, in other words, innumerable.

 

[healthmyths]

Nobody is denied healthcare in the U.S. If you can not afford to pay you can walk into, or be delivered to any hospital and get healthcare provided to you. The question we should be asking is can we provide that service in a more efficient, and equitable manner. Not how can we penalize most of America, and hand over yet more power to our incompetent government.

That is not true, Obama made it so if you go to emergency, you will be stabilized. But then they can send you home.
I was in emergency with my wife about 5 months ago and iI overheard a woman with serious heart trouble being sent away. They did take the trouble to call other hospitals to see if they would take her, but they refused her. I don't know what happened to her.

That WAS NOT courtesy of Obama care! It was because of this 1986 Act...

EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment And Labor Act)

In 1986, Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) to ensure public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. Section 1867 of the Social Security Act imposes specific obligations on Medicare-participating hospitals that offer emergency services to provide a medical screening examination (MSE) when a request is made for examination or treatment for an emergency medical condition (EMC), including active labor, regardless of an individual's ability to pay. Hospitals are then required to provide stabilizing treatment for patients with EMCs. If a hospital is unable to stabilize a patient within its capability, or if the patient requests, an appropriate transfer should be implemented.
Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) - Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Simply put if a hospital is paid Medicare they have to see patients regardless of ability to pay.

 

[alang1216]

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

To my mind powers = rights so I read this so say the Constitution is the overarching source of our rights, some of which it assumes, some of which it delegates

 

[kyzr]

Heard all this before for saving Obamacare. If 20% of the population uses 80% of the healthcare resources they need to pay more. The rest of us can't afford the high deductibles to keep everyone alive to 100. There needs to be lifetime limits on what we can afford, or the entire system will collapse. Medicare will be insolvent in 2026. Medicaid needs to be cut and managed better....
The real reason health care is bankrupting America

You've heard it all before because it's still true. Facts often work that way.

I have no idea what the rest of your post has to do with anything I said, given that none of the things you're harping on would be the case if my steps were implemented.

No offense, I'm looking at your recommendations as "fixing Obamacare". like Alexander & Murray tried to do
Inside the collapse of a bipartisan Obamacare deal

Congress & the Senate are a mess. They can't agree on anything. Hell, Ryan and the GOP couldn't even agree on how to fix immigration. Your fixes are fine, I support them, but I don't think they get us back to good healthcare with low deductibles, like we had before Obamacare.

Offense taken, since nothing I said had anything to do with "fixing" Obamacare, and would in fact necessitate doing away with it.

By all means, tell me precisely how what I said is "fixing Obamacare" and not giving us good healthcare with less cost? Explain to me how free markets and competitions are "fixing Obamacare", or putting decisions in the hands of the individuals rather than employers or bureaucrats, or making the patients the customers who need to be satisfied rather than third-party payers. How does ANY of that relate to Obamacare? How does any of the shit you've posted here or in your previous so-called "response" relate to anything I said?

Yeah, I am absolutely, 100% offended that you presumed to respond to my post without bothering to really read it - TWICE! - because you were in too big a hurry to shout your own views over and over.

No offense <again> but you might want to start with where we are, and then put your road map in to where we end up with good healthcare. Right now we have Obamacare, that's why I assumed that your recommendations were mostly the same (similar) to what Alexander-Murray proposed to fix Obamacare. So let me try again to see what you're proposing:

0. Repeal Obamacare, get back to a free market healthcare system run by insurance companies, with premiums, deductibles, and new stipulations
1-5 as you suggest, sell across state lines, many plan options, insurance premiums are tax deductible, customers can pool by region/hospital to get better pricing, setup HSAs for catastrophic coverage or deductibles? (you need to pay premiums to insurance companies or else you're a cash customer) You don't mention deductibles? Obamacare has $10,000 for many, I thought that was what your HSA was for, pay premiums, plus have HSAs for emergencies/deductibles.

Just trying to understand what your healthcare system would look like....

What you do or don't ASSume is not my problem. Maybe you should just read people's posts for what's there, rather than what you project onto them. Had I meant, "Let's add this onto the existing Obamacare garbage to spruce that system up", I'd have said so.

You might WANT me to "start where we are" by doing that; that's not my problem. I'm starting where we are by clearing the decks of the bullshit and failure, and replacing it with a better plan. Yes, I am absolutely saying that what we need to do is repeal and replace Obamacare, as our craven junkless Congressional Republicans promised so often, with a REAL system that REALLY works.

Let me take this moment to reiterate that my biggest - possibly only - problem with the GOP is that they don't appear to have a complete set of testicles amongst them.

As for deductibles, they're a regular part of insurance. However, how high your deductible is depends on a number of factors. If we had a system that put individuals in the driver's seat as the customer, then the policy options available to them would be tailored and customized to offer a wide range of choices. YOU decide whether you want to accept high deductibles in exchange for low premiums, or vice versa. (Mind you, the accompanying HSA would mitigate a lot of the pain of high deductibles if you ended up needing a lot of care).

That is EXACTLY why I included encouraging more use of HSAs in my list. I'm looking for a system that's flexible and accommodating to a wide variety of needs - rather than one-size-fits-all - and that puts people in the position of taking personal responsibility and becoming informed, while also giving them the power to make that work well for them.

Your re-design of the US Healthcare system using the free market with safeguards to help people afford the deductibles seems workable. The dems will whine about the 30m or so that were there without healthcare before Obamacare, that are now about 20m without Obamacare. Its still a complex mess figuring in the Medicaid freeloaders. Your system works for the 180m who have healthcare thru work, or are self-employed and buy insurance.
The 20m or 30m that don't have healthcare insurance just go to emergency rooms when needed, correct?

 

[rightwinger]

When I receive a messed up billing from a doctor I want the government to run healthcare as their punishment.

I feel the same way

After my wife was hospitalized for a week I got a stack of bills demanding payment before my insurance had even settled. I ended up negotiating between the doctors and my insurance over payment. Out of network doctors would show up and treat my wife and then my insurance refused to pay them

I met a guy from UK once who told me he had open heart surgery. He said he just showed his ID card when he checked in and never received a bill

Plenty of problems with the UK NHS. But theirs should be much cheaper and easier to administer considering how geographically close the population is ( UK has twice the population density of New York).

U.K. Hospitals Are Overburdened, But The British Love Their Universal Health Care
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the U.K., like many countries, has been taking in less tax revenue — so it's had to cut spending. Its expenditure on the National Health Service has still grown, but at a slower pace than before. That means drugs are now being rationed. Tens of thousands of operations have been postponed this winter. Wait times at the emergency room are up, says Richard Murray, policy director at the King's Fund, a health care think tank.

Anyone who has ever been smothered with medical bills would appreciate universal healthcare

Look at how much time and money Doctors spend on billing insurance companies, negotiating payment, providing documentation, going after patients for nonpayment

Why would anyone prefer that method of insurance ?

Here’s the reality- if I don’t have to pay for repairs on my car, why would I spend money on tune ups and oil changes? When people are not responsible for paying for their healthcare, they aren’t concerned with taking care of their bodies. They don’t worry about getting exercise or eating healthy foods. They eat crap and get a Rx from the doctor for cholesterol and high blood pressure, and tax payers get the bill.

Give me a HC system from another country you think should be employed in this country, and I’ll bet you would really not agree to duplicate it when you consider (I point out to you) all the requirements to duplicate that system.

What a ridiculous assumption

People with health insurance are more likely to get preventative procedures. Physicals, colonoscopies, mamagrams, blood and urine tests
All of which prevent more expensive conditions down the line

 

[rightwinger]

Nobody is denied healthcare in the U.S. If you can not afford to pay you can walk into, or be delivered to any hospital and get healthcare provided to you. The question we should be asking is can we provide that service in a more efficient, and equitable manner. Not how can we penalize most of America, and hand over yet more power to our incompetent government.

That is not true, Obama made it so if you go to emergency, you will be stabilized. But then they can send you home.
I was in emergency with my wife about 5 months ago and iI overheard a woman with serious heart trouble being sent away. They did take the trouble to call other hospitals to see if they would take her, but they refused her. I don't know what happened to her.

Obamacare is nothing of the kind
It provides insurance coverage. What you are describing is emergency healthcare BEFORE Obamacare

 

[rightwinger]

When I receive a messed up billing from a doctor I want the government to run healthcare as their punishment.

I feel the same way

After my wife was hospitalized for a week I got a stack of bills demanding payment before my insurance had even settled. I ended up negotiating between the doctors and my insurance over payment. Out of network doctors would show up and treat my wife and then my insurance refused to pay them

I met a guy from UK once who told me he had open heart surgery. He said he just showed his ID card when he checked in and never received a bill

Plenty of problems with the UK NHS. But theirs should be much cheaper and easier to administer considering how geographically close the population is ( UK has twice the population density of New York).

U.K. Hospitals Are Overburdened, But The British Love Their Universal Health Care
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the U.K., like many countries, has been taking in less tax revenue — so it's had to cut spending. Its expenditure on the National Health Service has still grown, but at a slower pace than before. That means drugs are now being rationed. Tens of thousands of operations have been postponed this winter. Wait times at the emergency room are up, says Richard Murray, policy director at the King's Fund, a health care think tank.

Anyone who has ever been smothered with medical bills would appreciate universal healthcare

Look at how much time and money Doctors spend on billing insurance companies, negotiating payment, providing documentation, going after patients for nonpayment

Why would anyone prefer that method of insurance ?

It is more than the bills. our system limits freedom. If you want to change jobs, you risk going without health insurance for a requalifying period,. You also have to factor health insurance into the equation if you want to start your own business.
Health insurance costs go up every year outstripping inflation. Co-pays get bigger and you get coverage slashes. health insurance companies are in the denial of care business. They make more money by denying you the care you pay for. So they do,. Get sick and see how much they will fight you. When you are at your weakest, you have to fight to get your procedures covered. Our system is terrible.

Agree

 

[debbiedowner]

Several.

First of all, people need to be getting their health insurance individually, the way they buy every other insurance they use, rather than being dependent on an employer to decide which plan is going to be offered and how much it's going to cost them. This would require several things.

1) Allow health insurance to be sold across state lines to increase competition.
2) Allow insurance companies more scope to tailor policies and coverage to what their customers want to buy.
3) Give individual purchasers the same sort of tax breaks on their insurance that employers currently enjoy.
4) Allow customers to form their own associations through which to buy insurance and get discounts available for larger customer pools.

Second of all, the patients need to also be the customers when it comes to using healthcare. Rather than mandating expansion of EVERY policy to cover EVERY possible use of medical care, we need to expand the use and availability of HSA and flexible spending accounts. Instead of sending premiums to an insurance company every paycheck, that money goes into an account pre-tax, and waits there for you to use it. And then when you need to visit a doctor, YOU see the prices, YOU decide what to spend and where. Prices for medical care will become lower and less obscure when doctors aren't having to figure out how to get around a bunch of bean-counters and algorithms at some insurance company.

Heard all this before for saving Obamacare. If 20% of the population uses 80% of the healthcare resources they need to pay more. The rest of us can't afford the high deductibles to keep everyone alive to 100. There needs to be lifetime limits on what we can afford, or the entire system will collapse. Medicare will be insolvent in 2026. Medicaid needs to be cut and managed better....
The real reason health care is bankrupting America

You've heard it all before because it's still true. Facts often work that way.

I have no idea what the rest of your post has to do with anything I said, given that none of the things you're harping on would be the case if my steps were implemented.

No offense, I'm looking at your recommendations as "fixing Obamacare". like Alexander & Murray tried to do
Inside the collapse of a bipartisan Obamacare deal

Congress & the Senate are a mess. They can't agree on anything. Hell, Ryan and the GOP couldn't even agree on how to fix immigration. Your fixes are fine, I support them, but I don't think they get us back to good healthcare with low deductibles, like we had before Obamacare.

Offense taken, since nothing I said had anything to do with "fixing" Obamacare, and would in fact necessitate doing away with it.

By all means, tell me precisely how what I said is "fixing Obamacare" and not giving us good healthcare with less cost? Explain to me how free markets and competitions are "fixing Obamacare", or putting decisions in the hands of the individuals rather than employers or bureaucrats, or making the patients the customers who need to be satisfied rather than third-party payers. How does ANY of that relate to Obamacare? How does any of the shit you've posted here or in your previous so-called "response" relate to anything I said?

Yeah, I am absolutely, 100% offended that you presumed to respond to my post without bothering to really read it - TWICE! - because you were in too big a hurry to shout your own views over and over.

No offense <again> but you might want to start with where we are, and then put your road map in to where we end up with good healthcare. Right now we have Obamacare, that's why I assumed that your recommendations were mostly the same (similar) to what Alexander-Murray proposed to fix Obamacare. So let me try again to see what you're proposing:

0. Repeal Obamacare, get back to a free market healthcare system run by insurance companies, with premiums, deductibles, and new stipulations
1-5 as you suggest, sell across state lines, many plan options, insurance premiums are tax deductible, customers can pool by region/hospital to get better pricing, setup HSAs for catastrophic coverage or deductibles? (you need to pay premiums to insurance companies or else you're a cash customer) You don't mention deductibles? Obamacare has $10,000 for many, I thought that was what your HSA was for, pay premiums, plus have HSAs for emergencies/deductibles.

Just trying to understand what your healthcare system would look like....

The individual deductible for 2019 is $7900.

 

[Cecilie1200]

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

To my mind powers = rights so I read this so say the Constitution is the overarching source of our rights, some of which it assumes, some of which it delegates

You can't imagine how disinterested I am in what your mind thinks words mean. They have actual definitions for a purpose - communication - and that purpose is undermined if I'm expected to do a Vulcan mind meld on every uneducated doofus I encounter to figure out what half-assed, vague meaning THEY have attached to a word.

To the English language, "rights" = "something to which one has a just claim; something that one may properly claim as due". These are not limited to specific powers, nor are all powers necessarily rights. The powers held by the government are NOT the government's by right; they are privileges granted by the people, and revocable by the people if abused. And the Constitution is NOT the source of our rights. It is the instrument by which the government is prevented from denying them.

If you're an American citizen, you should start acting like it and learn something about our national history, culture, and character. It's repellent to watch any adult act like an ass-kissing slave of government.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You've heard it all before because it's still true. Facts often work that way.

I have no idea what the rest of your post has to do with anything I said, given that none of the things you're harping on would be the case if my steps were implemented.

No offense, I'm looking at your recommendations as "fixing Obamacare". like Alexander & Murray tried to do
Inside the collapse of a bipartisan Obamacare deal

Congress & the Senate are a mess. They can't agree on anything. Hell, Ryan and the GOP couldn't even agree on how to fix immigration. Your fixes are fine, I support them, but I don't think they get us back to good healthcare with low deductibles, like we had before Obamacare.

Offense taken, since nothing I said had anything to do with "fixing" Obamacare, and would in fact necessitate doing away with it.

By all means, tell me precisely how what I said is "fixing Obamacare" and not giving us good healthcare with less cost? Explain to me how free markets and competitions are "fixing Obamacare", or putting decisions in the hands of the individuals rather than employers or bureaucrats, or making the patients the customers who need to be satisfied rather than third-party payers. How does ANY of that relate to Obamacare? How does any of the shit you've posted here or in your previous so-called "response" relate to anything I said?

Yeah, I am absolutely, 100% offended that you presumed to respond to my post without bothering to really read it - TWICE! - because you were in too big a hurry to shout your own views over and over.

No offense <again> but you might want to start with where we are, and then put your road map in to where we end up with good healthcare. Right now we have Obamacare, that's why I assumed that your recommendations were mostly the same (similar) to what Alexander-Murray proposed to fix Obamacare. So let me try again to see what you're proposing:

0. Repeal Obamacare, get back to a free market healthcare system run by insurance companies, with premiums, deductibles, and new stipulations
1-5 as you suggest, sell across state lines, many plan options, insurance premiums are tax deductible, customers can pool by region/hospital to get better pricing, setup HSAs for catastrophic coverage or deductibles? (you need to pay premiums to insurance companies or else you're a cash customer) You don't mention deductibles? Obamacare has $10,000 for many, I thought that was what your HSA was for, pay premiums, plus have HSAs for emergencies/deductibles.

Just trying to understand what your healthcare system would look like....

What you do or don't ASSume is not my problem. Maybe you should just read people's posts for what's there, rather than what you project onto them. Had I meant, "Let's add this onto the existing Obamacare garbage to spruce that system up", I'd have said so.

You might WANT me to "start where we are" by doing that; that's not my problem. I'm starting where we are by clearing the decks of the bullshit and failure, and replacing it with a better plan. Yes, I am absolutely saying that what we need to do is repeal and replace Obamacare, as our craven junkless Congressional Republicans promised so often, with a REAL system that REALLY works.

Let me take this moment to reiterate that my biggest - possibly only - problem with the GOP is that they don't appear to have a complete set of testicles amongst them.

As for deductibles, they're a regular part of insurance. However, how high your deductible is depends on a number of factors. If we had a system that put individuals in the driver's seat as the customer, then the policy options available to them would be tailored and customized to offer a wide range of choices. YOU decide whether you want to accept high deductibles in exchange for low premiums, or vice versa. (Mind you, the accompanying HSA would mitigate a lot of the pain of high deductibles if you ended up needing a lot of care).

That is EXACTLY why I included encouraging more use of HSAs in my list. I'm looking for a system that's flexible and accommodating to a wide variety of needs - rather than one-size-fits-all - and that puts people in the position of taking personal responsibility and becoming informed, while also giving them the power to make that work well for them.

Your re-design of the US Healthcare system using the free market with safeguards to help people afford the deductibles seems workable. The dems will whine about the 30m or so that were there without healthcare before Obamacare, that are now about 20m without Obamacare. Its still a complex mess figuring in the Medicaid freeloaders. Your system works for the 180m who have healthcare thru work, or are self-employed and buy insurance.
The 20m or 30m that don't have healthcare insurance just go to emergency rooms when needed, correct?

There are other ways to make sure that poor people have access to healthcare besides making 300 million-plus people wards of the state. (I know, I'm preaching to the choir on that one.) For starters, free market solutions like I have proposed would make basic care WITHOUT government aid more accessible to a lot of the working poor. They can't afford the monthly premiums for employer-sponsored plans that cover everything but the kitchen sink, but many of them could manage the much-lower premium of a catastrophic plan and a small deduction to their HSA, which would again be there waiting to actually be of use when they need it, rather than just being paid and pissed away for any month they didn't go to the doctor the way a premium is.

As for those who don't have that option, there are also far better, more effective solutions than the current Big Federal Government, one-size-fits-all "solutions" we have now. In fact, the first thing I would suggest would be to get the federal government as far out of administering it as possible. You do not get cost-effective, efficient solutions by having national politicians meddling in it to pander to their base (and I DO mean on both sides of the aisle).

Let the individual states have a crack at it without being hamstrung by federal regulations every time they turn around. If we really must have federal tax dollars involved, then do it in the form of block grants to the state, and let THEIR innovative powers get to work.

 

[kyzr]

No offense, I'm looking at your recommendations as "fixing Obamacare". like Alexander & Murray tried to do
Inside the collapse of a bipartisan Obamacare deal

Congress & the Senate are a mess. They can't agree on anything. Hell, Ryan and the GOP couldn't even agree on how to fix immigration. Your fixes are fine, I support them, but I don't think they get us back to good healthcare with low deductibles, like we had before Obamacare.

Offense taken, since nothing I said had anything to do with "fixing" Obamacare, and would in fact necessitate doing away with it.

By all means, tell me precisely how what I said is "fixing Obamacare" and not giving us good healthcare with less cost? Explain to me how free markets and competitions are "fixing Obamacare", or putting decisions in the hands of the individuals rather than employers or bureaucrats, or making the patients the customers who need to be satisfied rather than third-party payers. How does ANY of that relate to Obamacare? How does any of the shit you've posted here or in your previous so-called "response" relate to anything I said?

Yeah, I am absolutely, 100% offended that you presumed to respond to my post without bothering to really read it - TWICE! - because you were in too big a hurry to shout your own views over and over.

No offense <again> but you might want to start with where we are, and then put your road map in to where we end up with good healthcare. Right now we have Obamacare, that's why I assumed that your recommendations were mostly the same (similar) to what Alexander-Murray proposed to fix Obamacare. So let me try again to see what you're proposing:

0. Repeal Obamacare, get back to a free market healthcare system run by insurance companies, with premiums, deductibles, and new stipulations
1-5 as you suggest, sell across state lines, many plan options, insurance premiums are tax deductible, customers can pool by region/hospital to get better pricing, setup HSAs for catastrophic coverage or deductibles? (you need to pay premiums to insurance companies or else you're a cash customer) You don't mention deductibles? Obamacare has $10,000 for many, I thought that was what your HSA was for, pay premiums, plus have HSAs for emergencies/deductibles.

Just trying to understand what your healthcare system would look like....

What you do or don't ASSume is not my problem. Maybe you should just read people's posts for what's there, rather than what you project onto them. Had I meant, "Let's add this onto the existing Obamacare garbage to spruce that system up", I'd have said so.

You might WANT me to "start where we are" by doing that; that's not my problem. I'm starting where we are by clearing the decks of the bullshit and failure, and replacing it with a better plan. Yes, I am absolutely saying that what we need to do is repeal and replace Obamacare, as our craven junkless Congressional Republicans promised so often, with a REAL system that REALLY works.

Let me take this moment to reiterate that my biggest - possibly only - problem with the GOP is that they don't appear to have a complete set of testicles amongst them.

As for deductibles, they're a regular part of insurance. However, how high your deductible is depends on a number of factors. If we had a system that put individuals in the driver's seat as the customer, then the policy options available to them would be tailored and customized to offer a wide range of choices. YOU decide whether you want to accept high deductibles in exchange for low premiums, or vice versa. (Mind you, the accompanying HSA would mitigate a lot of the pain of high deductibles if you ended up needing a lot of care).

That is EXACTLY why I included encouraging more use of HSAs in my list. I'm looking for a system that's flexible and accommodating to a wide variety of needs - rather than one-size-fits-all - and that puts people in the position of taking personal responsibility and becoming informed, while also giving them the power to make that work well for them.

Your re-design of the US Healthcare system using the free market with safeguards to help people afford the deductibles seems workable. The dems will whine about the 30m or so that were there without healthcare before Obamacare, that are now about 20m without Obamacare. Its still a complex mess figuring in the Medicaid freeloaders. Your system works for the 180m who have healthcare thru work, or are self-employed and buy insurance.
The 20m or 30m that don't have healthcare insurance just go to emergency rooms when needed, correct?

There are other ways to make sure that poor people have access to healthcare besides making 300 million-plus people wards of the state. (I know, I'm preaching to the choir on that one.) For starters, free market solutions like I have proposed would make basic care WITHOUT government aid more accessible to a lot of the working poor. They can't afford the monthly premiums for employer-sponsored plans that cover everything but the kitchen sink, but many of them could manage the much-lower premium of a catastrophic plan and a small deduction to their HSA, which would again be there waiting to actually be of use when they need it, rather than just being paid and pissed away for any month they didn't go to the doctor the way a premium is.

As for those who don't have that option, there are also far better, more effective solutions than the current Big Federal Government, one-size-fits-all "solutions" we have now. In fact, the first thing I would suggest would be to get the federal government as far out of administering it as possible. You do not get cost-effective, efficient solutions by having national politicians meddling in it to pander to their base (and I DO mean on both sides of the aisle).

Let the individual states have a crack at it without being hamstrung by federal regulations every time they turn around. If we really must have federal tax dollars involved, then do it in the form of block grants to the state, and let THEIR innovative powers get to work.

Thanks for the explanation. I like your healthcare system.
Now get to work figuring out how to get the cost of drugs like insulin more affordable.
U.S. insulin costs per patient nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016: study - Reuters
"A person with type 1 diabetes incurred annual insulin costs of $5,705, on average, in 2016. The average cost was roughly half that at $2,864 per patient in 2012, according to a report due to be released on Tuesday by the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI)."

Any ideas?

 

[Gornoodle]

I don't want the government running a lemonade stand. The bureaucracy has proven time and time again it is both incompetent, and self serving, and often hostile too the taxpayer and people it is supposed to SERVE.

You want DMV, or VA type service and quality? Let the government run healthcare! Why do Liberal/Progressive put so much faith in government? It is just another collection of flawed humans that can not be held accountable, and just want to grow their departments.

The government runs Social Security and has never missed a check. It runs the VA and Vets love the care.For-profit means they will cheat you to make more money. It is health denial business. Get sick and see how difficult it is to access the care you have paid for.

 

[Pilot1]

I don't want the government running a lemonade stand. The bureaucracy has proven time and time again it is both incompetent, and self serving, and often hostile too the taxpayer and people it is supposed to SERVE.

You want DMV, or VA type service and quality? Let the government run healthcare! Why do Liberal/Progressive put so much faith in government? It is just another collection of flawed humans that can not be held accountable, and just want to grow their departments.

The government runs Social Security and has never missed a check. It runs the VA and Vets love the care.For-profit means they will cheat you to make more money. It is health denial business. Get sick and see how difficult it is to access the care you have paid for.

I personally know disabled Vets who HATE the care of the VA.

 

[BuckToothMoron]

When I receive a messed up billing from a doctor I want the government to run healthcare as their punishment.

I feel the same way

After my wife was hospitalized for a week I got a stack of bills demanding payment before my insurance had even settled. I ended up negotiating between the doctors and my insurance over payment. Out of network doctors would show up and treat my wife and then my insurance refused to pay them

I met a guy from UK once who told me he had open heart surgery. He said he just showed his ID card when he checked in and never received a bill

Plenty of problems with the UK NHS. But theirs should be much cheaper and easier to administer considering how geographically close the population is ( UK has twice the population density of New York).

U.K. Hospitals Are Overburdened, But The British Love Their Universal Health Care
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the U.K., like many countries, has been taking in less tax revenue — so it's had to cut spending. Its expenditure on the National Health Service has still grown, but at a slower pace than before. That means drugs are now being rationed. Tens of thousands of operations have been postponed this winter. Wait times at the emergency room are up, says Richard Murray, policy director at the King's Fund, a health care think tank.

Anyone who has ever been smothered with medical bills would appreciate universal healthcare

Look at how much time and money Doctors spend on billing insurance companies, negotiating payment, providing documentation, going after patients for nonpayment

Why would anyone prefer that method of insurance ?

It is more than the bills. our system limits freedom. If you want to change jobs, you risk going without health insurance for a requalifying period,. You also have to factor health insurance into the equation if you want to start your own business.
Health insurance costs go up every year outstripping inflation. Co-pays get bigger and you get coverage slashes. health insurance companies are in the denial of care business. They make more money by denying you the care you pay for. So they do,. Get sick and see how much they will fight you. When you are at your weakest, you have to fight to get your procedures covered. Our system is terrible.

Yes, our system has plenty of room for improvement, we all know that. I am waiting for somebody to describe the system they want, the system that would be better here.

 

[BuckToothMoron]

When I receive a messed up billing from a doctor I want the government to run healthcare as their punishment.

I feel the same way

After my wife was hospitalized for a week I got a stack of bills demanding payment before my insurance had even settled. I ended up negotiating between the doctors and my insurance over payment. Out of network doctors would show up and treat my wife and then my insurance refused to pay them

I met a guy from UK once who told me he had open heart surgery. He said he just showed his ID card when he checked in and never received a bill

Plenty of problems with the UK NHS. But theirs should be much cheaper and easier to administer considering how geographically close the population is ( UK has twice the population density of New York).

U.K. Hospitals Are Overburdened, But The British Love Their Universal Health Care
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the U.K., like many countries, has been taking in less tax revenue — so it's had to cut spending. Its expenditure on the National Health Service has still grown, but at a slower pace than before. That means drugs are now being rationed. Tens of thousands of operations have been postponed this winter. Wait times at the emergency room are up, says Richard Murray, policy director at the King's Fund, a health care think tank.

Anyone who has ever been smothered with medical bills would appreciate universal healthcare

Look at how much time and money Doctors spend on billing insurance companies, negotiating payment, providing documentation, going after patients for nonpayment

Why would anyone prefer that method of insurance ?

Here’s the reality- if I don’t have to pay for repairs on my car, why would I spend money on tune ups and oil changes? When people are not responsible for paying for their healthcare, they aren’t concerned with taking care of their bodies. They don’t worry about getting exercise or eating healthy foods. They eat crap and get a Rx from the doctor for cholesterol and high blood pressure, and tax payers get the bill.

Give me a HC system from another country you think should be employed in this country, and I’ll bet you would really not agree to duplicate it when you consider (I point out to you) all the requirements to duplicate that system.

What a ridiculous assumption

People with health insurance are more likely to get preventative procedures. Physicals, colonoscopies, mamagrams, blood and urine tests
All of which prevent more expensive conditions down the line

That is absolutely true, great point. People who pay for health insurance are more likely to use it as a preventive tool. People getting free BO care don't bother.

 

[Dragonlady]

Let's not forget that sick illegals and their children get "free healthcare". That includes premature babies who rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital bills PER CHILD.

So you're proposing that if an illegal immigrant has a premature baby because of a lack of universal health care in your country, that the hospitals should let these infants die? Is that what you're really saying, Mr. Conservative Ban Abortion, save the unborn?

Another example of conservatives showing more interest in saving a fetus than in providing for living breathing children.

 

[kyzr]

Let's not forget that sick illegals and their children get "free healthcare". That includes premature babies who rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital bills PER CHILD.

So you're proposing that if an illegal immigrant has a premature baby because of a lack of universal health care in your country, that the hospitals should let these infants die? Is that what you're really saying, Mr. Conservative Ban Abortion, save the unborn?

Another example of conservatives showing more interest in saving a fetus than in providing for living breathing children.

My recommendation is to deduct any bills for illegals from the "foreign aid" budget. We should also tax remittances sent out of the US to help pay for migrant and wall costs.

 

[Esmeralda]

Choosing universal healthcare for this country is a freedom, and it will come to be: the voters will choose it.

I think our healthcare system needs an overhaul. Obamacare did huge damage to it. However, a government run system is not the answer. Universal healthcare will neither be affordable, nor sustainable in a country of 330 million and growing with ILLEGALS and people that don't pay into it. We are not Canada, nor the UK. We are different, have different social pressures, and need a different, market based, competitive and efficient solution.

Yada, yada, yada, yada....same old ignorant BS. Medicare works for millions of Americans. Medicare for all will work for the entire country. Stop being negative and looking backwards. Look forward.

The people on Medicare paid for it all their working lives.
Having Medicare for all will bankrupt it sooner. Medicare is going bankrupt by 2026
Medicare Will Be Insolvent by 2026—Can America Fix It in Time?
and that is just with the people over 65 who earned it. Adding freeloaders will kill Medicare for everyone.
Looking forward, if you want healthcare work for it and pay for it.

No. People who are retired paid for social security. We pay as much for medical expenses now as we would pay for Medicare for all. It comes directly out of your pocket now; the same amount or less would pay for it through taxes. If the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share of taxes, it would pay for Medicare for all and more. Also, we need to stop giving doctors and the drug companies exorbitant amounts of money. You need some vision to see that it would work. Doctors from other countries come here in order to become wealthy: not because they are the best doctors in the world but because they can make a lot more money here instead in countries that have universal healthcare.

Just going to reply to your incorrect points:
1. You have no clue how much Medicare for all would cost. Its simply unaffordable no matter how many lies Bernie and the democrats tell you. That's why I started off saying "remember Obama's claim we'd all save $2,500 a year with Obamacare":
The Cost of 'Medicare-for-All' - FactCheck.org
"The top line of the paper’s abstract says that the bill “would, under conservative estimates, increase federal budget commitments by approximately $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years of full implementation.” According to the paper, even doubling all “currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan.”
2. Corporations pay about 9% of the Federal revenue of $3T a year. No where near enough to fund Medicare for all, even if doubled or tripled. All that would happen is that they would move overseas and take their jobs with them.
Policy Basics: Where Do Federal Tax Revenues Come From?
3. Controlling healthcare costs is a very good goal, but you need more than a "vision", you need workable ideas that can become workable policies. Read this and take your pick...
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(09)01115-2/fulltext

Corporations don't pay their FAIR share of taxes and neither do the wealthy. Warren has proposed a plan to change that. The government would get enough money in taxes from them to fund Medicare for all. Duh.