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Everyone had healthcare before. No one was turned away even if they didn't have healthcare. So your reason for voting for Obama is lame and worse yet it was a bad decision. What you do not understand is that healthcare workers are already being pushed to dangerous work loads. Put more on these people and it will be even worse.
You must live on a different planet than the one I do. The only care available for people without insurance is either charity care or emergency care which the hospitals can't avoid providing because of a federal law. This has lead to some awfully dumb things. The poor wait until they are in an absolute crisis before seeking medical attention. Than, you're often dealing with cancer that has spread, heart disease which has advanced to the point where bypass surgery is needed, or diabetes complications like kidney disease that could have been prevented.
It doesn't take a genius to understand that getting these folks some kind of primary care from a physician is actually going to save this system money over the long haul. If we can prevent the problems that I've listed above, we'll have more than enough to pay for primary care. It takes looking at the problem differently and more intelligently. It takes a different approach than acting like you do and behaving like "Chicken Little".
We will need to train more primary care physicians. We will also need more nurse practitioners and physician assistants. We can train these groups and again, over the long haul, it will be a cost savings for this country.
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These are hard working people and there is a such thing as diminishing returns. You just voted for a lower quality of care.
Sigh, yes. We had such a great system before Obama became President didn't we? Obama didn't create the system that has resulted in healthcare costing us 17% of our national income. In Canada, its about 10% and the people there have a longer life expectancy than we do. But, let's not stop with Canada. Name a country in the developed world that doesn't have universal health care besides the USA. Can't do it, can you? An intelligent person would understand there's a reason for that. Other developed countries have learned that a universal health care system not only contributes to the health of their citizens, it contributes to making the country more economically productive when they are able to control health care costs and take the burden of providing health insurance away from employers.
Fact: This country can't afford the type of a health care system that has costs increasing at 6% annually even when the rate of inflation is near zero. Sooner or later, you run out of money. What made that system particularly pathetic was the fact that even with all the resources being dumped into it, we still had 15% of our population with no health insurance. The system we had before Obamacare was wasteful, expensive, inefficient, and left 47 million people uninsured.
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There will be consequences to your free stuff. There will be consequences that you can't even begin to understand.
Let's say for the sake of argument that the Affordable Care Act has some flaws in it. They can be fixed. If physician reimbursement rates for primary care physicians are too low, than they can be raised. It isn't the end of the world. Its simply a question of re-evaluating circumstances and changing them. We can fix other problems too.
What many of us were saying when the Affordable Care Act passed is that we were "fed up" and we wanted something different. We knew it wouldn't be perfect. We knew it wouldn't fix every problem right away. We have created a situation where we have reduced the number of uninsured people by over 20 million and that rapidly approaches universal healthcare.
Its not perfect, but we'll gradually fix what isn't.
Whether you are a D or an R, healthcare reform should be a top priority for you. It is rapidly approaching, what, 18% of GNP? Obamacare is not the answer, but it is a first step in a long journey we must take as a people.
The thing no one wants to address, that has been addressed by virtually every other major civilized nation, is the terrible R word---Rationing. We simply do not have enough health resources to do everything--we don't. We ration now in a different fashion so it doesn't pop up on our radar so much.
People with no insurance go to and bog down our emergency rooms for illnesses that are not an emergency. The hospitals foot the bill and then raise prices so that the insured pay for the uninsured.
The insurance companies are not in the business of providing service to people who get ill or injured, they are in business to make money, so they charge not only the cost for delivering care, but another cost for their expenses, and another charge for their profit. (I'm a retired 30 year ratemaker/compliance officer from the insurance field). Profit is wonderful, makes our country go around, but in the healthcare field it is devastatingly expensive.
One reform we could make would be to go to a "workers compensation" type scheme for injuries in that occur as the result of medical mistakes or misdiagnoses. A person would be compensated for their injury, maybe even get some lost income. All doctors would pay into it and they would have their own board to police themselves---get rid of doctors that are adding too much to the cost of their "premiums". It would be a non-profit system, so that while we wouldn't take out the expense element, we could eliminate the profit element and wouldn't have to pay executives multi-million dollar bonuses.
Secondly, everyone has to pay for insurance. It costs society as a whole, and it is not fair to pass that cost on to only a portion of society. Every state in the nation (I think) requires auto insurance and has a pretty stiff penalty for driving without it. Driving is something that intrinsically endangers and costs all of us, so all of us who want to drive have to buy the coverage. Likewise, with limited health resources, simply being alive postulates costs to society which ALL of us, rich and poor alike, need to bear with at least some minimum amount of coverage. How we reach what is needed and how the cost of that coverage is spread out are topics we need to address rationally. Not everyone will be pleased. I'm not, but I realize it must happen before healthcare collapses our nation.
Third, we must make some tough, tough choices on end of life care. I'm 66, not in the very best of health, and I should not burden society with an ever burgeoning cost of keeping me alive if I become seriously ill. Dick Cheney got a heart transplant??!!! We get 2000-2200 donor hearts per year and need 100,000. How do people over 70 go to the head of the list? Money, of course. But is that the right answer or the best answer. Would Cheney's heart have been better placed in a 35 year old man who was the breadwinner for a family of four? Cheney's family is going to do alright regardless. The rest of us may be picking up the cost of providing for the family of the hypothetical 35 year old.
I'm not saying these are easy choices, or comfortable choices. But we cannot continue as we are right now. The sooner we bite the bullet--stop worrying about our individual right to healthcare choices and be more concerned about society's ability to survive our rugged individualism---the more likely we are to survive as a nation for another century or two. Fail in this endeavor, or ignore it, and this country is a goner far sooner than any of us believe is possible.
The thing no one wants to address, that has been addressed by virtually every other major civilized nation, is the terrible R word---Rationing. We simply do not have enough health resources to do everything--we don't.
We ration now in a different fashion so it doesn't pop up on our radar so much.
People with no insurance go to and bog down our emergency rooms for illnesses that are not an emergency. The hospitals foot the bill and then raise prices so that the insured pay for the uninsured.
Oh yea, I've seen people come into the ER for non-emergency reasons.
Ahhh yes, the rationing. Also non-health care determining if the procedure is needed. How about not being able to return to the hospital within a 30 day period. The poster above is under the illusion that we will educate more doctors but in fact we will see a loss of doctors for several reasons.
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Originally Posted by Wardendresden
I'm a retired 30 year ratemaker/compliance officer from the insurance field. Profit is wonderful, makes our country go around, but in the healthcare field it is devastatingly expensive.
Oh yea, take the word of someone who works in the insurance field, the pencil pusher who sees people as a number as apposed to someone who worked in the hospital for over 20 years. You are right about one thing. There will be rationing.
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Originally Posted by Wardendresden
All doctors would pay into it and they would have their own board to police themselves---get rid of doctors that are adding too much to the cost of their "premiums". It would be a non-profit system, so that while we wouldn't take out the expense element, we could eliminate the profit element and wouldn't have to pay executives multi-million dollar bonuses.
Uh hum, another expense on top of all the other expenses including increase in taxes. No one would want to go to school to become a doctor now and many are getting out.
Oh yea, I've seen people come into the ER for non-
Oh yea, take the word of someone who works in the insurance field, the pencil pusher who sees people as a number as apposed to someone who worked in the hospital for over 20 years. You are right about one thing. There will be rationing.
Uh hum, another expense on top of all the other expenses including increase in taxes. No one would want to go to school to become a doctor now and many are getting out.
You are correct, I was a pencil pushing insurance guy. But after, I left the insurance field I worked six years in the medical records department of a major, downtown, metropolitan hospital. I handled the ER records (it was still paper then). I became a friend to the physician who headed the ER department. He later became the Medical Staff President. My wife is currently medical staff director of a very large, well known hospital in Texas. She has been in the field for 22 years.
I think you misunderstood the posting about doctors paying into a workers compensation type pool to reimburse victims of medical error. They would no longer need to purchase liability insurance. That can run
as high as $250K annually for some professions. They would police themselves as they wish to do, but if they couldn't weed out bad docs their rates would rise. On the bright side the sometimes ridiculous punitive damages---and all lawyer fees for lawsuits --- would go away.
Lawyers don't like this idea. And, yes, my best friend in college, best man at my wedding, is a medical malpractice lawyer!!!!
Even with this way of lessening burgeoning medical costs---rationing in a logical way must occur for us to survive.
Everyone had healthcare before. No one was turned away even if they didn't have healthcare. So your reason for voting for Obama is lame and worse yet it was a bad decision. What you do not understand is that healthcare workers are already being pushed to dangerous work loads. Put more on these people and it will be even worse.
These are hard working people and there is a such thing as diminishing returns. You just voted for a lower quality of care.
There will be consequences to your free stuff. There will be consequences that you can't even begin to understand.
Not true. You are very uninformed. Millions of people are uninsured and prior to Obamacare were being denied basic health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.
I was paying for two almost identical blood tests for my visiting uninsured relative. First time, I went trough doctor ($), "community" hospital ($), total $1200 +/-. Second time I ordered blood tests through www.directlabs.com, $99. Thanks God Ohio still allows direct patient lab works (Many states don't allow this, so please have ready $1200). That's quite a blood sucking racketeering scheme medical profession created for themselves.
After dealing with doctors trying to get care for an uninsured, I totally went social darwinistic. Please, no more BS about care and crap like that. They have nothing but dollars on their mind, and even if you offer them $ they think they may lose a business opportunity by taking care of an uninsured for cash. It's a jungle. So let it to be a jungle. Don't create a jungle according to your racketeering needs. Allow me to take care of myself without your mediation which you are unwilling to provide anyway. Why law forces me to look at your fake smile in order to obtain trivial prescriptions, and then law forces me again and again to use you as a middle man? I would rather have 100% business jungle than this racketeering paradise. Job security of doctors is not just a fluke of the market, American Medical Association makes sure that supply of doctors is (far) less than demand.
Often they charge a set amount for office visits, and insurance companies pay about 1/10 of that, if they are lucky. With all the overhead, they HAVE to stay afloat. How do they do that, if they can't break even?
Many family practice docs used to deliver babies. Hardly anymore as NONE can afford in excess of 250-400K a year in insurance premiums. Check out what a family practice doc makes, often not so much more than the nurses in the hospital where he spends hours on call.
Speaking of which, do you realize your average doc's office hours are only the BEGINNING? he/she spends MANY MORE on-call at the hospitals, 24 hours at a time, often, in addition to keeping those office hours. They work ungodly hours, most of them, like you cannot imagine.
BUT IF they are "making bank" , in my mind, they EARNED IT. Your specialists spend YEARS AND YEARS in residency and relative poverty to get to the point where they are now, practicing neurosurgeons, etc. These guys spend like anywhere upwards of 8 to dozen years in residency AFTER medical school. How many of you have the patience for that to get that "brass ring" so many complain about? Still......
Think about it
Professional ball players earn 100x more in some cases. Much less to risk, much more they make. So much more "respect" and admiration among a public who has skewed values. Many of these guys are recruited IN COLLEGE and don't even HAVE bachelor's degrees, much less medical degrees as well!
I agree with those calling for tort and insurance, as well as pharmaceutical reforms. The doctor salaries are NOT the problem ailing us. These things are.
Last edited by MOMdotCOM2011; 11-24-2012 at 04:59 PM..
They are already doing that. Mexico as well as India and Canada and Thailand come to mind. Medical tourism is not a new concept at all. I know my minister was crossing the border into Canada for dental work cause it was more affordable there than here in the USA at least 20 years ago. Nothing new under the sun. Just going to be more prominent. But BUYER BEWARE cause you often get what you pay for.
I was paying for two almost identical blood tests for my visiting uninsured relative. First time, I went trough doctor ($), "community" hospital ($), total $1200 +/-. Second time I ordered blood tests through www.directlabs.com, $99. Thanks God Ohio still allows direct patient lab works (Many states don't allow this, so please have ready $1200). That's quite a blood sucking racketeering scheme medical profession created for themselves.
After dealing with doctors trying to get care for an uninsured, I totally went social darwinistic. Please, no more BS about care and crap like that. They have nothing but dollars on their mind, and even if you offer them $ they think they may lose a business opportunity by taking care of an uninsured for cash. It's a jungle. So let it to be a jungle. Don't create a jungle according to your racketeering needs. Allow me to take care of myself without your mediation which you are unwilling to provide anyway. Why law forces me to look at your fake smile in order to obtain trivial prescriptions, and then law forces me again and again to use you as a middle man? I would rather have 100% business jungle than this racketeering paradise. Job security of doctors is not just a fluke of the market, American Medical Association makes sure that supply of doctors is (far) less than demand.
Sorry about the difficulty your relative has, but there are problems with where you are placing the blame.
Physicians do not set prices for laboratory services. They cannot even send you to a specific laboratory, unless for some reason it is the only one that does the test you need. It is illegal for the doctor to get a fee for referring a patient to a lab. You are free to use any lab you choose. For patients who do have insurance, the insurance company usually specifies the lab that will be covered under the insurance contract.
Also, the AMA does not determine how many medical school slots and medical residency slots are available. Medical school enrollment is increasing, but it is Congress that will have to act in order to increase the number of practicing physicians, since a 1997 law caps the number of residency slots.
"Once students graduate from medical school, they must receive an additional three to seven years of residency training to become practicing physicians.
'Medical schools are doing all they can to help alleviate the coming physician shortages by expanding enrollment. But we are nearing a critical deficit of residency training positions.
Without support from Congress to lift the 15-year cap on residency training, some future M.D.s may not be able to complete their education and care for patients. It takes time to train a doctor, and we must start now,' said Kirch.
You can also blame Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance company reimbursement for the high prices charged self pay patients. The reimbursement from third party sources may not be enough for some docs to stay in practice.
You are also free to interpret lab tests on your own. Just be aware that wise doctors do not treat themselves or their own families. It's hard to be objective when you are related to the patient. Of course, since you consider prescriptions to be trivial, why do any tests at all?
Last edited by suzy_q2010; 11-24-2012 at 06:55 PM..
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Healthcare reform
