Health Care Thread
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Isn't that the main criticism of socialized medicine? I think you just had your epiphany.
You should absolutely positively never remove the profit motive from anything. The key is making sure its the doctors, nurses, hospitals, medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies etc that enjoy a fair profit for their labor while not letting insurance companies screw you over to ensure they make exorbitant profits.
Quaid
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$8500 and not working would financially destroy every single one of the 50,000,000 Americans without insurance in 2013.
Your wife makes six figures. That alone isdoublewhat the average American household brings in annually.
You might not be rich, but you are just not who this discussion is about.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Of course that's the (terrible and myopic) argument against socialized medicine. It's the argument hyper-conservative power wielders in the US have used to bamboozle and marginalized the American poor for decades. But it's absurd.
The guy who wrote this is a conservative so perhaps someone who supports Obamacare can point out any factual errors in it for me. It explains why over 50% of the coops are failing
How Marco Rubio is quietly killing Obamacare
Calling this ?a taxpayer-funded bailout for insurance companies,? Rubio last year quietly inserted language into the omnibus government spending bill that barred the Department of Health and Human Services from dipping into general funds to pay failing insurers. ?While the Obama administration can still administer the risk-corridor program, for one year at least, they won?t be able to use taxpayer funds to bail out insurance companies,? Rubio said.
His provision sparked little opposition at the time, but it has proved to be a poison pill that is killing Obamacare from within.
Last year, insurers lost $2.9 billion more than expected on Obamacare. But insurers had paid only $362 million into the program ? leaving it more than $2.5 billion short. Thanks to Rubio?s provision, the administration was allowed to pay only 13 cents of every dollar insurers requested. Without the taxpayer bailouts, more than half of the Obamacare insurance cooperatives created under the law failed.
How Marco Rubio is quietly killing Obamacare
Calling this ?a taxpayer-funded bailout for insurance companies,? Rubio last year quietly inserted language into the omnibus government spending bill that barred the Department of Health and Human Services from dipping into general funds to pay failing insurers. ?While the Obama administration can still administer the risk-corridor program, for one year at least, they won?t be able to use taxpayer funds to bail out insurance companies,? Rubio said.
His provision sparked little opposition at the time, but it has proved to be a poison pill that is killing Obamacare from within.
Last year, insurers lost $2.9 billion more than expected on Obamacare. But insurers had paid only $362 million into the program ? leaving it more than $2.5 billion short. Thanks to Rubio?s provision, the administration was allowed to pay only 13 cents of every dollar insurers requested. Without the taxpayer bailouts, more than half of the Obamacare insurance cooperatives created under the law failed.
That doesn't mean it's an unreasonable price to CURE SOMEONE OF MOTHERFUCKING CANCER.
Are you saying that 8.5k is too much for that?
First let's establish your lunacy limit.
What is an acceptable value of money for 6 months of chemo, all the nurses involved in that, all the scans, all the medicine, the doctors, the janitors for the hospital, the lighting bill etc?
Second my wife wasn't making 100k then. We also lived in San Diego which the median income that year was $66k, I wasn't working at all. I was paying my $400/mo for insurance out of my pocket and not as a deduction from my paycheck since I didn't have one.
All of this and still pulled it off, because we are adults and not morons.
Third everyone has claimed these outlandish bills and that everyone has to fight with insurance to get even a single tylenol pill approved. I stated, and it is 100% factual, that I didn't have a single claim questioned or reversed. I didn't fight the process for one single second.
You guys have this idea of how the system works and you claim this and that. Your friend told you. Your cousin did maybe, or maybe Vaclav had an uncle that told you. I as a matter of fact JUST lived it and it was a cakewalk. Not because I was rich.
Are you saying that 8.5k is too much for that?
First let's establish your lunacy limit.
What is an acceptable value of money for 6 months of chemo, all the nurses involved in that, all the scans, all the medicine, the doctors, the janitors for the hospital, the lighting bill etc?
Second my wife wasn't making 100k then. We also lived in San Diego which the median income that year was $66k, I wasn't working at all. I was paying my $400/mo for insurance out of my pocket and not as a deduction from my paycheck since I didn't have one.
All of this and still pulled it off, because we are adults and not morons.
Third everyone has claimed these outlandish bills and that everyone has to fight with insurance to get even a single tylenol pill approved. I stated, and it is 100% factual, that I didn't have a single claim questioned or reversed. I didn't fight the process for one single second.
You guys have this idea of how the system works and you claim this and that. Your friend told you. Your cousin did maybe, or maybe Vaclav had an uncle that told you. I as a matter of fact JUST lived it and it was a cakewalk. Not because I was rich.
You were the one who made the assertion. I was just agreeing with you. Are you recanting it now?
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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You own words were "... if you remove the profit motive from medicine, competition will decrease, and bring with it all the negatives associated with that. Individual practitioner motivation and even skill would probably decline as well as treatment availability."
I think you 100% correct. Do you agree with me?
Ambiturner
Ssraeszha Raider
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Just because it was you instead of a friend of a friend doesn't mean your anecdote is more than just an anecdote.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Of course I agree, it's what I said. But that doesn't mean socialized medicine isn't a superior system. You pay a HUGE economic and social price for that extra 5-10% skill/motivation/availability derived from capitalism. It's like diminishing returns in an MMO and you've hit the soft cap on your stat. The price is millions of Americans without access to health care, and many being financially destroyed because they can barely afford it.
You could have 90-95% of the 'quality' of health care available in the U.S. now, because it's still a field only the very best will go into, and have every single American taken care of like the rest of the West.
Vaclav
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.Gov workers get choices, Seniors get a basic that's OK with no choices but extra choices are available (AKA Medicare Advantage Plans) and in some states Medicaid has options as well. (Maryland had like a dozen - unsure FL's method yet)
What is an acceptable value of money for 6 months of chemo, all the nurses involved in that, all the scans, all the medicine, the doctors, the janitors for the hospital, the lighting bill etc?
My in law are on medical and have every whim paid for when it comes to their diabetic spawn they have let turn to shit.
Not because they have medical bills but because they have stuff that put them too far into debt to begin with.
You guys are worse than climate change deniers. Just like it has been forever coming vis a vis global warming, those people that go bankrupt because of medical bills are frequently just using that as the last straw to declare bankruptcy and then ride out the next seven years until they can rack up more debt.
In the meantime their medical bills aren't paid but that cost is something we pay forward.
Palum
what Suineg set it to
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Look, I don't disagree but this is the world we live in. Americans do not prepare for financial emergencies. 8.4K to overcome Cancer is certainly more than reasonable but that's not the true cost. It's too easy to say that without looking at what you (and your company) pays for insurance over your lifetime and what care you receive. Anecdotes are not really useful, that's what actuarial tables are for.
So the real question is does the ACA help or hinder healthcare in the US and does it provide more access to those who did not have it before? This is much harder to answer and from every indication I've seen, it is a series of half-measures that do not equate to much better care or lower costs for anyone at this point. Every person I know who has looked at the exchange for care gets substandard care at a high rate. That they may or may not get it paid for by the state is irrelevant. The care is minimal. Now, from a purely preventative perspective I think the ACA has succeeded to some extent - most of the shit tier plans cover the majority of checkup/OTC costs.
Is the net result worth it? I don't think so. Everyone I know who actually contributes to society on some level but uses the ACA exchange got royally screwed. It could be those specific states, I'm not really sure, but they got worse plans than before the ACA. In some states that had NO individual plans, obviously the ACA was actually a good thing at first until recently when the plans lowered benefits.
As a secondary question, the monetary issue has to be raised because that is the CORE of the plan. To say you are 'insured' but it does not cover the proper treatment for many things is completely worthless and yet this is what many medicare and ACA plans do. You are severely restricted on choices both in doctors, types of treatments and care. I'm not talking about exotic things, new designer drugs, etc. just things that are $10 more expensive/mo but 100x more effective yet not covered to save cost. In some cases, those who would be covered under charitable care instead get worse treatments under the new ACA plan because by having insurance that basically tells the doctor what to do, they get strongarmed into it.
I don't even want to get into a partisan argument because really, the analysis does not need to be based upon political leaning just net effect. I think the reason many have different opinions are because it changes based upon income and region/state to a lesser degree.
So breaking it down to income brackets and the NET effect on an individual including financial burden and actually taking care of the medical issue this is what my observation has been since the exchanges came out. This doesn't mean it is all the ACA's fault directly but just how medical coverage has changed since people started using the exchange. This is also for people who didn't abuse before and don't now:
Poverty: preventative ++, standard care ~, emergency care ~
These folks can go to get a checkup, they are still getting mostly charity care, not much has changed because they can't afford a 50%+ coinsurance on 'better' or self-sourced options.
Working Poor: preventative ++, standard care -, emergency care --
They suffer the most in my view, they don't qualify for a full subsidy so they lose critical pieces of their paycheck and on top of it, the overall care quality hasn't changed - they are just out more money now and this money is very critical in this income bracket.
Middle Class: preventative +, standard care ~, emergency care -
Middle class has been somewhat affected. Insurance covers a bit less on the large side than they used to but it's not awful. Preventative is covered which is nice, but standard care has gone up slightly to compensate. Probably overall a negative to those people seeking care for chronic/major illnesses as prices have creeped up, it will put them back and may bankrupt some but it may save the house. Probably not much change for those who just get normal healthcare overall.
Well off: preventative +, standard care -, emergency care --
These folks get 'screwed' but they can probably afford it, they just don't want to. That said the biggest hit is the absurd price of the good individual insurance plans over what they cover. It's a net loss for most financially unless they hit
That's all ignoring other provisions that were very much needed like the pre-existing condition clause BS and stuff like that. I think overall it's made a dent on getting people TO the doctor. It has maybe had a slight decrease overall in care quality by nature of plan coverages for those who had medical before simply because stuff is a bit more pricey. My biggest problem is MOST of these items could be fixed by reasonable regulation of insurance and combating useless care standards and bullshit expenses that inflate prices.
So could the ACA be successful? I actually am inclined to think so. Is it? I don't think so - because the biggest factors in waste and price gouging were NOT solved by it. It's a bunch of half-measures in an attempt to avoid regulating health insurance and it's not really working. The people I feel it should be helping (those who actually work but didn't have any or decent healthcare before) are the ones who are still paying out obscene money on other excesses in the system on massive deductibles.
All my ranting aside we have problems. The ACA did one good thing and one good thing only, rid us of pre existing conditions. As a result of course all our rates rose but that alone wouldn't be a bad thing.
The rest of the ACA is a dumpster fire that the insurance companies alone are profiting from.
The rest of the ACA is a dumpster fire that the insurance companies alone are profiting from.