I understand that those who oppose a national healthcare plan do so under the individual freedom to choose. That IS a commendable argument. The problem for me is NO one goes through life without ever seeing a doctor and many of those people who choose not to, do so by infringing upon me and the taxes and preminums I have to pay. The rights of millions of people with pre existing conditions to have a healthcare plan is already realized and applauded. It is Medicare and the pre existing condition is old age.
You can’t give everyone that right to have a plan while having preexisting conditions without mandatory enrollment by the healthy. To me, these are the two things that supplant ones right not to be insured. It costs everyone because, everyone will need health care, and when you do change your mind, like you are uninsured and come down with cancer or old age, you can’t expect everyone to foot your bill if you haven’t been footing mine or others.
Lastly, two things…30000 a year die for lack of healthcare…
And it’s cheaper to insure everyone then just a few when everyone still uses the healthcare system…let me repeat that…it is good economic policy to insure everyone…conservatives, please hear that. Please also acknowledge that you think something should be done with the uninsured who die needlessly…now, what else is that if not what we are trying ?
We need to be very smart about how we target tests and monitoring.
Of course we do…never said different.
I just gave ONE example…of the THOUSANDS of preventative medical procedures available to everyone who has insurance. Early detection of MOST cancers can give you up to a 1000% great chance of recovery then when it’s diagnosed in the final stage.
Preventative medical care is FAR FAR cheaper then catastrophic medical care.
Well, the colonoscopy recommendation (every 5 years for EVERYBODY) is wrong for low risk people after their first one. If they’re in the low risk category less frequent tests are appropriate (this study says every 10 years) while in the high risk category (probably a small minority of total cases) more frequent tests are recommended. Cutting unneeded tests in half for most people is important.
Agreed…What EVER the frequency…albeit every year or 10 years…it’s still FAR FAR cheaper then waiting until the person has colon cancer…Unless you’re suggesting that if they do get colon cancer…we just let them suffer and die… Then yes that would be the cheapest route.
Just trying to understand where you’re coming from.
I’m just showing that preventative medicine is cheaper in the long run. If everyone had access to insurance…I think in the long run it would be cheaper then the tens of thousands of emergency room visits every year by people who don’t have insurance.
I remain unconvinced that we cannot provide healthcare for those who cannot afford a plan, and without taking away any freedoms or raising any taxes. Our government has simply chosen to support only those entities that they feel can help them get elected, or those that they made promises to in order to GET elected, instead of using the money to benefit our citizens. Even the Veteran’s medical facilities have been scalped over these past few decades. It’s disgusting.
I do not believe the ACA is the answer. I believe it will throw lower income working people into negative cash flow, cause many small businesses to opt out leaving their employees struggling and cause others to close, raise the price of everything…that’s where the added business expenses will go…and still not improve healhcare access.
I also believe we’ll be supporting a multibillion dollar new regulatory agency that will only promulgate volumes of new control regulations burdening businesses and individuals and will not improve access to healthcare or the quality of healthcare. Their sole focus will be to reduce costs. We’ll have patients denied coverage for important procedures, being instead told they need to use much cheaper alternates…even if they don;t work as well. I myself have fought his battle a few times recently.
And now that we’ve established the precedent of using the IRS as an enforcement agency to force individuals to buy a product from a private industry, what’s to stop us from mandating that everyone buy a house? The concept is exactly the same, the numbers are just different.
And therein lies the fallacy. It’s the accusation of those that support the ACA that those who oppose the ACA don’t care about the poor. It’s easier to accuse the opponent of being evil than to try to understand his/her position. It isn’t that we don’t care. It’s that this law is way, way overreaching, overly expensive, and will cause suffering to individuals and businesses wihout improving heathcare or healthcare access. We care about the poor. But this law isn’t the solution. It’ll do far more damage than good.
And cost is not the only issue with testing. With the rise (some would say explosion) of antibiotic-resistant infections in hospitals, the net health impact of some tests might be negative:
@same
I agree, there is a way and it’s used in countries where the legislature is controlled by public interest and not corporate greed. Our tax dollars for example, overpay in Medicare partD by billions of dollars because Madicare is not allowed to practice free enterprise. That’s greed passed by the republican controlled congress. Republicans seem to do everything they can to siphon tax dollars into corporations. Health care should be non profit !
A couple of mandates would go a long way. Only allow non profit entities to insure our health coverage with strict payment schedules for procedures established by a board of doctors and non profit representatives, or Medicare for all…quite simple but the insurance lobby is too strong…they need their profits.
For profits don’t work for police protection, fire protection, notional defense and health care.
The single biggest step in Obamacare moving us slowly to non profit, is allowing insurance companies to insure, but limiting their profits to near non profit status…less then 20%
But, I feel that "ACA will not work " without providing an alternative, is very polite way of saying…“let them die”,
I was not aware that the entirety of Medicare’s troublesome features originated solely with the Republicans, nor did I realize the Democrats in congress are as pure as the new-fallen snow. Learn something every day!
Just as a point of reference, in listening to Fox News on radio and television and tuning in to most of the Republican presidential primaries and chasing the issue on bing and google I have never heard anyone from the Republican Party mention any concern whatsoever for ensuring that the poor have basic health care. The Republican mantra seems to be;“I got mine… And I’m keeping it.”
@same
You don’t think that an increase in the deficit of 1. 2 trillion over the next ten years is significant ? That was their plan. Create an expensive government program, driven by coporate greed that needs to be privatize. I need to find out why older retirees think the Repulican brand is so good for them. I havn’t figured that out.
Are Dems pure as the driven snow ? Heck no…lthat’s why I am an Independent. But, contrary to others opinion, I am not as dumb as I look, and I will not support a party who already, cut my social security benefits by 2/3 and wants to cut my Medicare benefits, or worse, take me back to all the private insurance times when they could stop my coverage or refuse to insure me. In these areas, I support the Democrats, the liberal ones. On this issue Republicans for me, fail the smell test. History indicates who can handle my economy and my healthcare best.
I’m voting with my pocketbook. The Ryan plan has and will be the Republican financial base for republican’s platform. As soon as the next republican president gets elected, I’m out of the stock market, completely. History and not any perceived purity of Dems drives me on that.
I’m working on taxes so a little too tired to think about this but one thing is clear, we need to move a little to the middle where I am. One side says don’t do anything and the other side says do everything because people are dying. One thing is clear, we can’t do everything but we should do something. I had high hopes that Obamacare would be a step in the right direction. I don’t intend to read the 3000 pages and not many have, but I suspect like usual, there is a lot of beauracratic crap in it. I thought just allowing people to access Tri Care would be a good start. Myself, all I want is a catastrophic plan with a health savings account. My fear is that we’re heading for a train wreck but I hope not. I suspect I’ll continue to have to pay our $900 a month while I also pay for the guy down the street that makes no money and is uninsured.
Our local hospital is in the red. 3% of its revenue went to cover the uninsured that were provided services. Thats the difference between profit and loss. To say that people are dying is a bunch of bunk. Hospitals are providing the care now. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates are constantly being reduced and the feds push more of the problems onto the states to deal with. I fear this will be the same only on a huge scale.
A little off topic but still disturbing is that yesterday it was announced that 38% of Minnesota school kids qualify for free or reduced lunch. Now Minnesota has a fairly high income level and its hard to believe that 38% of Minnesota parents are so poor and dysfunctional that they can’t pay their kids lunch. Even worse is 54% nation-wide. Then whatever percent it is that gets money back from the EIC because they make so little (must be 40+%) is illustrating that half the population is being paid for by the other half. This is not a healthy road we are going down. You can’t have 40-50% of the population not contributing and stay healthy.
Just saying people will die if we don’t do something is really not much of an arguement. People need to care for themselves and having insurance is one part of it. All my life I have had a policy whether a student or not or poor or not. The one I bought for my son at 25 was a $2000 deductible for $100 a month. That’s all I was looking for.
Instituted during the Reagon administration, it has resulted in numerous unfair retirement situations where people loose most of their social security if they collect another govt. pension, but not all. It has no influence on the retirement collected by any one from the private sector. They collect both as they contribute to each fund. I worked at local school departments with some state aid to my retirement and which was classified as govt. employment.
Regardless of how much I qualified for full benefits with my contribution by working additionally in private businesses, local govt. and self employment otherwise, I lost two thirds of my qualifying retirement income from social security…,That was a big hit and forced me to work longer then I planned. When this was put into effect, I know teachers who had transferred from the private sector to public schools who had to work into their 70s to get a livable retirement as they also lost 2/3 of their earn SS benefits as well.
The Offset was not grandfathered but put in place during the Reagon administration as a reduction in social security expenses, as part of a fix to a problem that did not exist. This is similar to the SS , Medicare scare that goes on now ! Our state was late in rescinding this unfair situation when given a chance (it had a republican gov. at the time. ) and it has been thwarted in budget by EVERY republican caucus since on the federal level. So, every month when my reduced SS check comes in, I am reminded who is responsible. I dropped out of any party ailiation 20 years ago because of both parties rampant disregard for the working class…repeat, BOTH parties.
I expect Obama et al to capitulate more on SS and Medicare benefits this time around as well, reinforcing my position that both parties are bought off…one a little less then the other.
@bing
I disagree that hospitals keep uninsured alive. They perform emergency care ONLY and then only provide follow up care to those wo can pay on only in states with sufficient Medicaid to cover it… Pay from ther own insurance, medicaid or out of their own pocket book. Hospitals don 't give cancer treatments without pay…it’s only Medicaid that makes the decision for the uninsured. Hospitals don’t work for nothing…people die without coverage. So, you work at a hospital and know differently ? No cancer treatments, no heart surgeries, no screenings to catch diseases early…etc. hospitals do not provide these services for free…you think people only die in the ER ?
That’s the “head in the sand” instead of “let them” die response.
Mike Says, " On the other hand I look at it like SSN and medicare. People who DON’T save for retirement or don’t have family support or insurance to take care of medical problems…then the rest of us are paying for it. "
I agree with this Mike. Also, add the people who bought homes they couldn’t afford that we helped bail out their mortgages.
The problem I see is that the more folks who learn that if they don’t save for retirement or for health care or live within their means that the government will step in and take care of them, the more people will blow off personal resposnsiblity and plan on dependency. It’s happening. It’s rampant. I sometimes wonder if these folks have it figured right.
No, I really don’t want anybody to die for lack of healthcare, but who’s killing them ? Why are you looking at me ? I think, within reason people have got to be more responsible. We’ve got Medicare. We’ve got Medicaid.
Am I to blame for people who drink or smoke or overeat themselves to death, but didn’t use any alcohol or cigarette or food money for healthcare or taking care of themselves ?
@dagosa I believe the offset is because the feds do not pay into the social security system so you can’t draw if you don’t pay in for that income anyway. In Minnesota, this is true I believe for the police and fire, prison workers, highway patrol, etc. Mainly because they pay a higher percent (up to 10%) into their pensions and are eligible to draw in about 20 years. They don’t pay the social security portion of the FICA tax though so they don’t get the full SS benefits. Its a trade off. May have changed now and I’m sure some were surprized when they applied for SS. I know a postal worker friend would work a second job all the time just so he could also draw a higher SS payment because of it and that was geez, 50 years ago. If you worked other jobs that did pay into SS then those jobs and the income from them is what made the SS payment determination. Don’t blame you for being upset but if you don’t pay into the system you aren’t part of the full benefit program.
You’ve probably got a point about the lack of on-going care for the uninsured but in just our little hospital, it amounts to millions of lost dollars. If we are going to provide full care to everyone, someone is going to have to pay for it-that’s the sad reality. Medical care is expensive. So if its $6 million in our town, its billions nation-wide so it needs to be paid for not borrowed. Guess who will pay for it? So whether its Obamacare, medicaid, medicare, private insurers, or what, that large gap between income and expenses needs to be closed. I suspect though, my premiums will go up to close the gap.
@bing
Maybe I wasn’t clear…I payed fully into the system !!! I worked at my SS contribution jobs in addition to teaching. I would work for three months at a time with NO days off on many occasions. I know what happened inside and out…it was my life to…i did not wait to see of I qualified but kept track with the SS dept. yearly. BTW, the qualification regiment was different then…you can’t compare to what is done now by percents. You had to work x number of hours in each quarter to qualify for a good quarter. When you accumulated the sufficient number of quarters, you qualified for SS benefits.
So , no ,what you are saying about not paying in enough is not correct . I worked enough in all my non govt jobs to qualify fully for my social security benefits. I was getting state retirement, not federal retirement as in the armed service . Much of my social security too was paid while working for years at a private school. I only contributed to social security and not state retirement at the private school so I would make sure, along with all my other jobs, i would have my benefits qualify. I worke as a private contractor and payed into it myself as well. This was a sudden rule change without grandfathering anyone who had planned their retirement this way by working their asses off.
Had I know my SS would be reduced I would have worked those years in a public school instead of a private. But I lost twice. Once for the SS benefits loss plus the years I chose to contribute to SS instead of my state retirement…they were lost retirement years in my state retirement package too.
No matter which way you cut it…we got screwed with the loss of many thousands of projected retirement income.
Ad yes, I stayed politically active to change this injustice for years and without Republican support, it was an item that never got through the federal budget package in committee. The Repulicans voted against it every time, the Dems for it.
@bing
ACA
I understand how you feel. I don’t have a lot on confidence there won’t be pitfalls. But, we can not donothing as Medicare and Medicaid expenses will rise too fast and your insurance premiums, not mine on Medicare will go out of site or your deductibles will be too high. I also have too much compassion or the uninsured not to try. It has been tried and it works in Mass at least as a lab program. Wy not…things can’t get any worse for those who are without insurance and those who are insurance poor. We are the only industrialized country with our system…and we pay the most for healthcare per person with the worse outcomes for everyone but the privileged few.