National Healthcare

[bornl33t]

Some of you guys need to go work in a hospital for awhile and then come back here and post.

My wifes a RN/BSN...


ok so one thing most conservatives agree on is the system is broken...whats the chance of revolution of a breaking up of the states?

[Lohman446]

Some of you guys need to go work in a hospital for awhile and then come back here and post.

Why? Is there a defense for the charges that are charged being reasonable? I'm not talking cutting edge here either in my specific example - this is not a new surgery, or even a new method. This has been standard practice for a decade +.

[Thordic]

Lohman, I think the bankrupt by 2020 arguement is extremely valid.

Does that mean that Medicare will dissapear in 2020? No, of course not.

But it will not longer be self-sustaining. Meaning the government will have to either take money from other needed programs, or more likely, just add to our already mounting national debt.

The national debt has been increasing at a rate of $3.8 billion dollars a day since 2007. So in the time I wrote this post, the goverment managed to spend about $5,000,000 it didn't have.

Just wait until we have to pay for Medicare too.

[teufelhunden]

Wish insurance could be provided by 1.45% of my wages...

You're not paying for your own medical care with that 1.45% so your implication that government healthcare is more efficient because it works on only 1.45% (actually 2.9%) of your wages is one of the very strawmen you're trying to knock down.

Further, anybody who fails to see stepping stones towards a "supreme leader decides if you get the kidney stone taken out or not, based on cost/benefit analysis and your expected mortality" system needs to remove the blinders.

Just listen to these peoples' own words.

[Thordic]

15% of the country is enrolled in Medicare as of 2008.

So 2.9% of EVERYONES wages is paying for healthcare for 15% of the population. And even that isn't enough as Medicare is running out of money.

If you expand it to 100% of the population, it'd take 20% of your wages. And the system would still be bleeding money.

[Lohman446]

Thordic, I actually was well aware of the flaws in the statement I made, however the "well the government takes 1.45% to pay for medicare" annoyed me. It seemed as equally invalid of an argument. I would think your 20% is accurate to low, it is surely not a high estimate.

However, the fact that many peoples insurance premiums (including those "given" to them as part of employment) are very close to the house payments they make. The system is not being run efficiently - I think we can all agree on that.

At base I beleive in less government. However, if the government has any obligation it is to protect the people when those supplying needs get out of hand.

[Thordic]

20% is just the medicare percentages blown out to include the whole population. Considering that the current Medicare system isn't adequetely funded, I doubt the expanded system would be either.

Especially since I suspect that doctors barely break even on Medicare patients and look to make their money on other patients. If you had a whole system of patients where doctors could barely break even, it wouldn't work.

[drg]

OK... maybe I went a little too far back in bringing up legislation form the 70's but it was given teeth in 1995 leading to the major sub prime issues which bring us into today, and very oddly into the health care debate as we're now seeing it. I don't think I even made mention of it in my previous lengthy post until the end, sorry for getting on a soap box

Sigh. CRA has nothing to do with the subprime crisis. That is a right-wing lie, plain and simple.

If you expand it to 100% of the population

STILL YET AGAIN, nobody is proposing that. No matter how many times you knock that straw man down, it still doesn't make a valid point.

[bornl33t]

Again, what is being proposed then? I want you to say it, so you can input something to this conversation instead of saying "your wrong" in every post.

[Beemer]

Again, what is being proposed then? I want you to say it, so you can input something to this conversation instead of saying "your wrong" in every post.

That would be a nice change of pace now wouldnt it.?

[teufelhunden]

Sigh. CRA has nothing to do with the subprime crisis. That is a right-wing lie, plain and simple.

Prove it, big guy.

[Thordic]

So coverage isn't going to be available for everyone? I thought that was the point here.

Or you just expect people with healthcare to pay for their own private healthcare AND to also pay for the other 45 million peoples healthcare as well? Actually, that probably is what you expect.

[vf-xx]

Has anybody thought about doing away with health insurance all together?

Maybe expand how HSA's are used to allow for companies to provide that benifit to employees, but get rid of the overhead all together?

Why not make people responsible for themselves? *shock gasp*

[Lohman446]

Has anybody thought about doing away with health insurance all together?

Maybe expand how HSA's are used to allow for companies to provide that benifit to employees, but get rid of the overhead all together?

Why not make people responsible for themselves? *shock gasp*

Personally I think the system would self check free market style if we only allowed "catastrophic" health insurance to cover claims over 20K (or 10K, or whatever). Because people "don't pay" the bill directly (instead forking over $100s a month to an insurance company to pay for a couple hundred dollars a year of service) they really don't care that there doctor charges $1000 an hour for a nurse to chat with them.

[Thordic]

You run into ethical issues there. You are moving healthcare back a few hundred years to where you had to pay for all your own services.

It would raise mortality rates amongst the poor, and the US would be crucified for it. When you start looking at the statistics and you notice the poor have a life expectancy of 60 years and the rich are living to 90, you'd have some explaining to do.

EDIT: There would be some balancing. The less doctors had to fight with insurance companies, the more likely they would be to be able to charge reasonable rates for their services.

You still run into issues where the poor are going to the doctor less because they can't afford it. They may still get treatment, but preventative care would go down the toilet across the board.