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Seriously? Isn't the above kind of...uncompassionate, I guess may perhaps be the best word, for our fellow human brothers and sisters? I mean, as many have cited in multiple posts on this thread, getting a serious illness like cancer, or being struck by a car or similar serious injury or medical condition, would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars to successfully treat. Without health insurance to help cover the medical costs, as others here have wisely mentioned, the unfortunate souls who are suffering under those kinds of circumstances would basically be handed a death sentence...
Well, I know the best option would be national healthcare, but like I said before, greedy Americans will never agree to it. And if you have something like cancer, are the hospitals really going to lack so much compassion and deny treatment if you don't have insurance? They won't let you make monthly payments on your chemotherapy treatments even if you can only afford $50?
And who do you think provides the subsidy money? Oh that's right, the hard working taxpayer. Obamacare is nothing more than a money shuffle game. You take away from one person and give it to someone else.
With the high premiums and copay, a person is even more likely to go bankrupt with Obamacare than not having insurance. To a person only making 25K a year, a 30K bill vs 150K is the same. There is no way you can pay either one.
Why do you assume that people who will need subsidies don't work hard? Janitors, customer service reps, hospital orderlies, admin assistants, etc tend to work a whole lot harder for their measly wages and benefits than do the suits sitting behind fancy desks in corner offices with their six and seven figure annual compensation packages.
FYI, chances are that the person earning $25,000 will be eligible for Medicaid or for a very high subsidy.
Well, I know the best option would be national healthcare, but like I said before, greedy Americans will never agree to it.
Americans can't even afford Medicare. What makes you think they can afford Medicare for all?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kgordeeva
And if you have something like cancer, are the hospitals really going to lack so much compassion and deny treatment if you don't have insurance? They won't let you make monthly payments on your chemotherapy treatments even if you can only afford $50?
Yes, they do it all the time. You can get treated for a heart attack or a broken leg, but not ongoing treatment. Hospitals are required to stabilize patients, not provide treatment.
Americaqns can't even afford Medicare. What makes you think they can afford Medicare for all?
Yes, they do it all the time. You can get treated for a heart attack or a broken leg, but not ongoing treatment. Hospitals are required to stabilize patients, not provide treatment.
Wow, I never wanted to believe that was true. I'm wondering how a doctor, who signed an oath, can tell a dying cancer patient that he can't get treatment until he pays up. I mean how exactly do you tell a cancer patient that?
The consumer is not the driver of high health care costs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
You are entitled to your opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts.
I love watching people eat their own words....
"As personal income increases, people demand more and better goods and services, including health care. This means that holding other factors constant, as higher personal income increases the quantity and quality of care demanded, overall health care spending increases as well. GDP is a good indicator of the effect of increasing income on health care spending."
Source: United States Government General Accounting Office GAO-13-281 PPACA and the Long-Term Fiscal Outlook, page 33.
One might be tempted to conclude that like Herr Josef Göbbels, you believe that if you repeat a lie often enough on forums, people will start to accept the lie as truth.
1] Technology up to 65% 2] Consumer Demand up to 36%
3] Expanding Health Benefits or Insuring more people up to 13%
4] Healthcare Price Inflation up to 19% (caused by Consumer Demand and insuring more people)
5] Administrative Costs up to 13% (caused by Technology, Consumer Demand and Regulations)
6] Aging/Elderly up to 7%
Source: United States Government General Accounting Office GAO-13-281 PPACA and the Long-Term Fiscal Outlook, January 2013 pp 31-36
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
"Shopping" for health care is not always feasible, and the cheapest care is not always the best.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
You are entitled to your opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts.
That's twice in one thread.
Given that you continually willfully, intentionally and knowingly misrepresent the argument for Free Market healthcare, one might have no choice but to conclude that you do so out of bigoted hatred.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
In addition, most docs/hospitals charge "usual and customary" rates, meaning they all charge about the same.
Uh-huh....and that's why a report by the Cincinnati Enquirer proved that under Free Market healthcare, the real cost of open-heart surgery is only $13,000 (in the Cincinnati MSA)...
....yet hospitals charge $26,000 to as much as $41,000 for open-heart surgery.
Yes, I can definitely see that in someone's differently twisted mind, $26,000 and $41,000 are "about the same."
Quote:
Originally Posted by silverkris
That's really a myth - it's the so-called "tort reform" movement. They've put in liability caps in Texas but it hasn't resulted in any diminishing in the rate of health costs going up.
Wow, finally some common sense and rationality from a poster.
Yes, you are quite right. Tort Reform is a Red Herring, not being a factor in high healthcare costs.
OB-GYNs have one of the highest rates of malpractice, and studies have shown that insurance rates do not decrease the number of such physicians, or drive them out of State or anything else.
I sourced a few of those studies years ago to debunk the Tort Reform Nutters here on C-D. Search the web, you'll find them.
No one should ever have to die (including premature babies) from a lack of medical procedures, if we as a society have the power and the medical technical capability, to help them live, and to save them...to do so is the only human and compassionate thing, to do...
Well said. Many of the same people who are squawking about the ACA now were the same ones braying loudly about "death panels" and scaring the bejesus out of seniors when this law was being discussed. They're opposed to doctors deciding who should be treated first (which is what is done today and has been done for decades) where medical resources (think organs for transplant) are limited, but they're fine with putting the rich (or the very well insured) ahead of everybody else ... probably because they think they're immune to being caught in a medical disaster.
Wow, I never wanted to believe that was true. I'm wondering how a doctor, who signed an oath, can tell a dying cancer patient that he can't get treatment until he pays up. I mean how exactly do you tell a cancer patient that?
Cancer patients still get treatment, but hospitals are not required to provide it. Besides, the drugs are the expensive portion. Now that isn't to say that surgery is cheap, but I don't know how many cancer patients need surgery or how many can't get surgery. I know 2 people that had cancer and got treated with no insurance. One is my friend's sister, she is still getting treatment. The other is my ex, she was "cured" last year.
I mean, did they suddenly expect Obamacare to roll back say a $100,000 surgery to $5,000?
No....I sure didn't.....especially since Obamacare doesn't do anything to reduce the cost of healthcare, but it does do many things to increase the cost of healthcare.
If you believe it does, then cite those sections of the PPACA that support your claim...after all, this is a debate, right?
And as one poster put it...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
You are entitled to your opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Proud2beAMom
No, it was designed to slow the double digit growth in health care costs.
No, it wasn't designed to do that....
"The expansion of health insurance increases health care cost per capita as people demand more health care when they are better insured. Health insurance has expanded in two ways: (1) by covering an increasing share of the population and (2) by covering each person more completely."
[underlined and bold emphasis mine]
Source: GAO-13-281 PPACA and the Long-Term Fiscal Outlook, January 2013; Page 34
1] Technology up to 65%
2] Consumer Demand up to 36% 3] Expanding Health Benefits or Insuring more people up to 13%
4] Healthcare Price Inflation up to 19% (caused by Consumer Demand and insuring more people)
5] Administrative Costs up to 13% (caused by Technology, Consumer Demand and Regulations)
6] Aging/Elderly up to 7%
Source: United States Government General Accounting Office GAO-13-281 PPACA and the Long-Term Fiscal Outlook, January 2013 pp 31-36
Pretty sad when your own government stomps down your claim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Proud2beAMom
It's a long term goal type of fix. There is no such thing as an instant fix.
Yes, there is an "instant fix" but in order to know what it is, you have to learn and understand how your healthcare system evolved.
Repealing that part of the 1954 IRS Tax Code (incorporated in the 1986 IRS Tax Code) that replaces health insurance with a fee-for-service plan would be a start...and its effects....positive....would be instant.
For a complete fix, only the States have the power and authority to do that...and it would start by destroying the hospital monopolies you love.
Can you explain why you hate oil monopolies, but love healthcare monopolies?
Monopolies are either good, or they are bad, but they cannot be both at the same time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Proud2beAMom
Actually there are no lifetime caps.
Correct. The PPACA abolishes both annual limits and life-time limits.
Obviously this country will never support a completely national healthcare system. But what if we just got rid of health insurance and paid for our healthcare out of pocket? I truly believe the reason healthcare is so expensive is because of the health insurance companies. If we got rid of health insurance, costs would probably drop by like 50 percent.
What about back in the olden days when the doctor would come to your house and then send a bill? Healthcare has just gotten way too complicated since health insurance companies go in the way.
One need not look far. They are right here in the US and you just see none of them hence asked the question. Google "non insurance covered services".
Obviously this country will never support a completely national healthcare system. But what if we just got rid of health insurance and paid for our healthcare out of pocket? I truly believe the reason healthcare is so expensive is because of the health insurance companies. If we got rid of health insurance, costs would probably drop by like 50 percent.
What about back in the olden days when the doctor would come to your house and then send a bill? Healthcare has just gotten way too complicated since health insurance companies go in the way.
I agree.
The #1 problem in this country is NOT lack of affordable health insurance.
It's lack of affordable health care. But that's not going to change. Too much profit going on.
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Isn't the above kind of...uncompassionate, I guess may perhaps be the best word, for our fellow human brothers and sisters? 
I mean, as many have cited in multiple posts on this thread, getting a serious illness like cancer, or being struck by a car or similar serious injury or medical condition, would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars to successfully treat. Without health insurance to help cover the medical costs, as others here have wisely mentioned, the unfortunate souls who are suffering under those kinds of circumstances would basically be handed a death sentence... 
