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Collectively, Republicans are a weird group -- Republicans in the State of Washington celebrated the State's Republican AG joining a lawsuit to fight-----fight tooth and nail, against finding a way to
bring affordable healthcare via Obamacare to over 200,000 of their constituents/friends/neighbors. But now-----now, after years of ideological foaming at the mouth, the Republicans are set to use Obamacare to balance their budget -- huh, are Washington State Republican lawmakers saying their ideological opposition to Obamacare was/is idiotic and they're changing their ways, or...?
SenateÂ’s GOP is counting on Obamacare to balance budget | Seattle Times Newspaper
Sunday, April 14, 2013 - Page updated at 07:30 p.m.
By Andrew Garber
Seattle Times Olympia bureau
OLYMPIA — Republicans were at war over President Obama’s health-care law less than a year ago. The Republican state attorney general had joined a lawsuit to overturn the law, and the party’s legislators warned it would cost too much money.
Now the GOP-led state Senate is counting on Obamacare to help balance the budget, booking more than $400 million in savings from the federal program over the next two years. House Republican budget writers assume some health-care savings as well.
“We’ll take it because financially it’s better for us,” said Don Benton, R-Vancouver, Senate deputy Republican leader.
“But we don’t like it. We don’t like the policy because it moves us dramatically toward a kind of socialized, one-payer-type system
<snip>
IOW's - the Republicans are saying 'WeÂ’ll implement Obamacare because it works for us, but we don't like it because it exposes our ideological idiocy' -- Republicans are very-very bizarre collective.
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So you think you have a handle on reality, eh?
This is exactly how the creation of an unhealthy dependency on the federal government works. I want you to pay very close attention to this. Very close attention. You are in a unique position of being present at the beginning where you can observe exactly how it works.
The federal government is subsidizing 90 percent of the costs of Obamacare for the next few years. ObamaCare will add tens of millions of people to the states' Medicaid rolls. Adding tens of millions of people is astronically expensive, and that would completely crush the states to do so.
But here's the trick. The federal government is paying that cost...in the beginning.
By doing this, the federal government is coercing the states into cooperating. The states have no choice. They either have to accept it and craft their own state plan, or ObamaCare dictates the federal government take over their state healthcare plans and make one for them.
Six years from now, having all those tens of millions of extra people on Medicaid will be the new normal. Everyone will have become accustomed to it.
Then, in 2019, the federal government will stop paying for them. And THAT is when I want you to remember back to 2010 when you so gleefully supported ObamaCare. Because 2019 is when the shit is going to hit the fan for the states.
In 2019, the states will suddenly be getting the medical bills for all those tens of millions of people. And the next thing you hear will be your state legislators telling you your state taxes are going to have to skyrocket to pay for those people, because there would be riots in the streets if they dropped all those new people after all that time.
THAT is the reality, fool. Reality is going to hit all you rubes smack in the face in 2019. Meanwhile, Obama will be laughing his ass off in retirement on the mashed potato circuit.
Really?
Yer kidding?
You want to argue cost? -- okeydoke!
If the cost of healthcare coverage is your #1 issue, you must be in favor of "Single Payer".
Medicare for All: Comparison
Single-Payer: Comparison to Current System
How Single-Payer Benefits You, Your Family and the Country
and How to Get It for the United States
Add Years to Our Lives and Life to Our Years at a Lower Cost
A pdf version of this web page is available either to view or to print a double-sided handout.
Current System: Complicated,
Bureaucratic, Expensive, Partial Coverage
Non-Profit Single-Payer: Simple,
Efficient, Half the Cost, Full Coverage
Varying degree of (unknown) benefits
– Variations among thousands of plans
– Details of coverage are often unknown until the doctor, hospital, or patient calls the insurance company to ask for approval to get health care
All medically-necessary care in one national plan
Primary care; inpatient care; outpatient care; emergency care; prescription drugs; durable medical equipment; hearing services, long term care; palliative care; podiatric care; mental health services; dentistry; eye care; chiropractic care; substance abuse treatment
Many Payers:
- Over 1500 health insurance companies plus an excessive number of additional programs: federal, state, and private (difficult to count)
– Result: patients pay excessive costs (below)
Single-Payer = One-Payer:
- One non-profit, public agency, accountable to the people
- Best version of non-profit national health insurance (NHI)
- Improved Medicare for All, no longer privatized
- Result: patients will pay minimal costs (below)
Basis: Free-Market Principles:
- The only free-market high-income country with this basis
– Focus on investors’ profits
Basis: Principles of Social Solidarity:
- All other free-market high-income countries have NHI
- Focus on Caring Â… by assuring health care for all
Astonishingly Poor Health in the USA:
- Life expectancy 30th in the world (50th as per CIA) - 19th of 19 in minimizing deaths due to preventable diseases
Healthier society and workforce:
- More people will be able to go to the doctor
- Physicians will provide more preventive & wellness care
Financial and emotional stress for many:
- Hardships for millions of Americans
Health care for all with dignity:
- Everybody In; Nobody Out. Show card & get care.
Health care restrictions
– HMO’s: specific physicians, specific hospitals
– Restrictions: out-of-network, pre-existing conditions
– Restrictions of care based on ability to pay
– Wait Times, including infinite wait times for the uninsured
Health care choices
– Selection of physicians, who will maintain their private practices, and selection of medical facilities
– Minimal wait times via continued wait time (queue) management as demonstrated in & out of U.S.
Insurance plan choices
– Yearly review & decision on which insurance plan(s)
– Constant worry about the impact of your choice
on the availability of care for your loved one(s)
Lifestyle choices. Â… coverage always there
- New job or loss of job
- Any profession/employment
- Leave of absence or early retirement to care for a relative
Complex with Many Costs:
– Payment of taxes and expensive health insurance premiums by employers and individuals
– Expensive co-pays and deductibles
– Percentage not covered by insurance
– Health care bills after the lifetime limit is exceeded
– Interest amount(s) during the payment of medical bills – Our federal and state taxes used to pay for-profit insurers:
– Incentives to health insurance companies
– Tax benefits to employers who provide health insurance
– Medicaid & many othe programs in 50 states,
many run by for-profit companies
Simple with Minimal Costs:
Payment of taxes to the single-payer fund,
but health insurance premiums drop to zero
The cost per person will be less than half (as per HR676)
$12,500/yr income: $49/month for health care
$50,000/yr income: $198/month for health care
– No co-pays, no deductibles (as per HR676)
– Much lower drug prices (negotiations; bulk purchasing) – Dramatically lower health care costs per family (as per HR676)
– Higher family income due to large net savings – Higher business profits, helping to keep jobs in the U.S.
– See Costs and Savings
Results of simplicity:
– Physicians send bills to the single-payer
– Single-payer makes equitable payments promptly with minimal paperwork
– Dramatically lower costs, such as prescription drugs
– Lower average cost per business
– One risk pool: society providing health as a public good, as well as other public services already being provided as a public good
Very poor efficiency.
– About 69% estimated efficiency
– About 31% spent on administrative functions
Managed, influenced, and/or operated by many:
– Over 1500 private insurance companies
– Multiple federal government programs
– Fifty states with their programs
– Influence of corpporate lobbyists
– Large billing staffs in hospitals & physician offices
– fund-raisers by friends, co-workers, relatives, charities
Excellent efficiency.
– About 95% or higher estimated efficiency
Managed by one public agency:
- Insulated from the U.S. and state legislatures
- Run by regional boardsWith regions being the same geographic locations as todayÂ’s ten Medicare regions
Results of single-payer:
Dramatic reductions in private and government bureaucracy
Summary About Non-Profit Single-Payer Financing:
* Simpler, more efficient
* No health insurance company bureaucracy
* Much less government bureaucracy
* Result: more benefits at a lower cost!
* The largest step the U.S. can take
to achieve quality affordable health care
And that my ideologically challenged friend-----that is reality but...
...but thanks dude/dudette-----thanks for supporting single payer healthcare coverage -- me too!
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