Health Insurance Discussion

[momisery]

Good, it is our only chance at competetion. If the world wants research, the whole world needs to help pay for it, not just our citizens. We can not afford it, and then be the army for the world, the charity for the world, and the job market for the world.

[nc73]

Finally there's a good chance the public option will make it through.

[momisery]

I don't think we can continue on this path. But getting big business to see that and our government is about impossible. We need real jobs with real wages. It lacks common sense to have someone working at wally world making low wages and the rest of us kicking in for their healthcare, DDS, and childcare. It provides to negatives. On one side those who are working see their incomes drop supporting this person, and two, this person feels worthless and reliant on the system. A better fit is to take away business charity deductions, and give them deductions only for building and hiring Americans and the cost of both of those things. If people make enough money working it spurs them on to buy homes, cars, pay for their own DDS, pay for some of the healthcare, and pay taxes. If we pay them so little so we can buy for so cheap all you really do is set up an economy where big business takes all the money instead of paying decent wages. It makes people not feel good about themselves and not care if they work or not. And when times are tough they have saved nothing because they can't so they have to ask for more handouts. And then business lays off more people. We need to stop the flow of all the money to them ... they owe our nation nothing as far as they are concerned.

[Pizza]

It's just one crisis after another, really. I don't see light at the end of the tunnel anywhere in this economy. 'Fix it' just means adding more to the deficit over and over again. How long can we continue with astronomical deficits before countries cut off our lifeline?

[momisery]

We can not wait, because the last time this came up under Clinton the healthcare industry and big insurance told us they would "watch" themselves. They have not. Healthcare is going up 10% next year, my wages went down 3% and with my increase I am not sure how far in the hole I will be. Projections are that wages are so bad we are already making 1997 incomes with 2009 prices. Those at the top are not working on this issue one little bit, they are scraping the cash off of it. Healthcare will become our next Wall Street/Banking mess... or perhaps they will continue to skim like Simmon's mattress has by bankrupting the system and selling it over and over again with new investors?

[nc73]

Actually the UK taxes isn't that bad especially with the current US economy. With people not having to worry about healthcare here, it's not bad at all.

[Pizza]

I understand why you're upset. Everyone is upset about this problem. What I don't get is why we wait until we reach a full-scale crisis mode to solve our problems. As bad of a president as Bush was, he did nothing worse than all the other presidents before him when it came to healthcare.

We have had a horrible economy this entire decade. Since the economy was so healthy and thriving during the mid-90s, why didn't Clinton get off his lazy butt and do something then? For that matter, why has every president preceeding Obama swept this problem under the rug?

Our economy is dying here and we're tackling healthcare at this moment why?! We will soon be worse off than the UK in terms of taxes and inflation, I guarantee it.

[lrprn]

Are we a little cranky, lrprn?

Yes, obviously I am very cranky about this issue. Very observant of you.

I'm tired of having a first row, front-and-center seat to watch sick, deserving American citizens have to choose between buying medicine or pay their mortgage, rent, or car payment.

I'm tired of watching spouses and parents desperately search for ways to afford the care their ill relative or child needs to survive.

I'm tired of watching families end up in bankruptcy because they have tapped out everything they have and more trying to pay enormous medical bills.

I'm tired of watching husbands, wives, and parents deliberately sacrifice their family's financial future by mortgaging their homes and other assets to the hilt to pay for an operation or expensive treatment to save their sick child or spouse now.

I'm tired of watching all the other first-world countries in the world provide basic healthcare for all their citizens and pay much less to do it and get better results than we do.

I could go on and on. Yes, I'm very cranky. Come spend some time in my shoes and watch the human wreckage accumulate right in front of you day after day - you'd be very cranky too.

I've said my piece several times on this thread. No sense repeating myself over and over. I needed to make a personal stand on this issue because I live embedded in it up to my ears every day and have for over 30 years. I understand how important it is to change it, and that the change has been far too long coming. If we don't get healthcare reform now, then the human cost is going to be enormous, but just as well-hidden and glossed over as it has been for the last decade or more.

It's far too easy to take a ideological stand when you don't personally have to see the bloodshot "whites of their eyes", when you don't have to watch a spouse or parent emotionally devastated because their loved one or child is suffering or dying only because they don't have enough money to pay for an operation or an expensive medicine. I pray you never have to see those faces firsthand, ever, because it tears at your soul in ways you will never truly understand until you are forced to experience it yourself. That was what I was trying to do - give a glimpse of the other side of the real healthcare human curtain. It's easier not to see it, I know. But it's there in all its pain and unfairness whether it's acknowledged or not.

Watching people suffer and die only because they don't have enough money on hand to pay for basic healthcare is a permanent stain on the fabric of our American society that we may never be able to wash out.

We should have tackled this problem decades ago; we may simply be too late.

On this I am sad to the depths of my soul to say we are in agreement.

Over and out.

[justbroke]

The collective we, Congress, is so busy trying to fix "healthcare" and health insurance, that they forgot that providing healthcare itself, is the bottom line. (And I don't mean "coverage for all", I mean a healthcare system that works for all. There's a difference between just coverage and working.)

Again, for me, this is a patch. I think the current administration is smart about positioning it now, after much rhetoric, as a step forward, but not the "cure" for the entire system. It's has gone from we must do this now, to this is the building block for the future. I don't believe it is without a complete overhaul from how we deliver care (private versus public hospitals/care facilities), to how we educate our doctors and nurses (Ivy League schools versus State schools versus tuition).

This bill, which I read parts of... spends so much time attacking insurance companies, that it seems to forget where the costs come from. The first part of the senate bill immediately goes after insurance companies. Can you say easy target? (By the way, you know how you win elections? Tell the (voting) people what the problem is... then tell them who is to blame for it! Yep... it's the insurance companies that are making things so expensive, if you are reading the general pulse of the people.)

I wouldn't expect any person who spent $450,000 on an 8-year education at Harvard, to get a $60K a year job. An interesting article in the Boston Globe last year said that only 44% of Harvard's graduating doctors chose primary care. The rest, of course, chose specialties like cardiology (where you can earn $400K a year!). That's down from 57% in 1999. So, you see why the doctors are heading to the specialties.

It is that curve you have to tame.

Come on... Congress' name for it is "America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009"? Are you kidding me? I thought it was about "HEALTH CARE" not "Health Choices".

Let's just call the current bill what it is... the Healthcare Omnibus Approriations eXtension of 2009. (Pun intended.) Why, because I bet it gets piggybacked with some pork.

(I mean no dis-respect to the honest congressman or congresswoman trying to do the right thing.)

[Pizza]

Actually, I was preaching to everybody that cares to read. I already knew you were in the choir.

[justbroke]

Though inflation would be present here as well, it is still a better option than a direct attack on private insurance companies in the long run.

You're preaching to the choir!

[Pizza]

Until the cost of attending medical school at Harvard is less than $100K... this just isn't going to fix the provider layer, which is where the problem is.

That's something else I have stressed many times (not here), that it is obvious that the medical industry is the only industry that practically guarantees jobs to college graduates, but as you said, most people just can't afford it.

It is a well known fact that the cost of tuition grows faster than any other inflation element in the country, even health care. This is also problematic for health care reform because if the government went the education route to provide, for example, your $100K Harvard education to potential medical students, we would still have an inflation/deficit problem.

That being said, it would be wonderful to have the market flooded with doctors, bringing down the cost of care and causing more wealth distribution as medical graduates spend heavily until their salaries drop with competition. This would ramp up growth in every sector of our economy. Though inflation would be present here as well, it is still a better option than a direct attack on private insurance companies in the long run.

[justbroke]

In regard to those links, they total 1,600 pages. If you actually had the time to read all of that, please explain their plan to recoup the costs of the programs.

Other than Sen Baucus' committee, I don't know if anyone read the whole thing. Your frustration is noted!

I think the problem is... there is a problem. The other problem is... without a master-reset, there's no way of fixing the root-cause of the problem. No one wants to do the master-reset (single payer system), so... we want reform instead of a revamp. I'm all for a revamp! However, what they're doing in the Congress... is not a revamp. Yes, they say that they're revamping the system, but they are not. They are just patching a sinking ship, in my personal opinion.

I want to see real change. I am actually not mad at the insurance companies. They are a middle man and make a profit on a system which makes its money at the provider layer... not the insurance layer! Unless until we change the provider system... I don't see must of a revamp at all.

I personally, without date, without reading the 1,600 page document, having limited experience in both the insurance layer or provider layers, and just thinking out loud... I only believe the current reforms will get us to trim a very little of the problem (slow it down), rather than actually fix it. Until the cost of attending medical school at Harvard is less than $100K... this just isn't going to fix the provider layer, which is where the problem is.

It's not the insurance layer!!! Insurance only provides coverage. It doesn't actually cure people, does nothing, and only acts as a payer.

[Pizza]

In regard to those links, they total 1,600 pages. If you actually had the time to read all of that, please explain their plan to recoup the costs of the programs. I skimmed through half of the second link and took in some of the general idea, which is a description of the fix, but not the means to pay for it.

If there were a fix that would not result in inflation, poverty, and/or war it would be justified. I just don't see how we could achieve this, and PDFs of legal mumbo jumbo aren't likely to address the issues I'm concerned the most about, but you're welcome to show me if you have found such in all of that.

[Pizza]

Are we a little cranky, lrprn?

I'm not repeating anything, at least not intentionally. This has been my stance since the beginning. We can't get around these deficits without giving our nation's creditor countries a nuclear submarine world tour.. (nuclear bankruptcy?) We have all been rattled by inflation over the past few years, and if the dollar keeps losing its value, we will never be able to overcome it. Every time we try to solve problems by printing money we are adding to future chaos.

The cost of health care has risen to these astronomical levels because of efforts by medical school graduates in the early 1900s to stomp out their competition, combined with technological advances that are funded by expensive research. We should have tackled this problem decades ago; we may simply be too late.

Do you think I would not want affordable healthcare for everyone if it were economically feasible? Of course I do! The problem is that we are in the middle of problems we have never seen before and we would most certainly compound the problem by adding more deficits to our plate.

The time to fix this problem is around 1970. Today, we just can't afford to do nothing and we can't afford to do something. We have just let this issue go unchecked until it has become an unstoppable monster. We ALMOST could have done this last year had we let the banks/automakers flop and tackled health care reform instead. Instead, we likely wasted our final opportunity.

Tackling healthcare today is like grabbing a fire extinguisher after the house has burned down. We could build another house in its place had we not have blown everything we had. I am sorry you were offended by my post, but this is how I feel about the issue and I simply don't think there is a viable solution.

As for the illegal immigrants, they may not be in the bill, but I can tell you from my experience with hospitals in Texas, they abuse the healthcare system and we all pay for it dearly. There is not a hospital in my city that will turn down someone who is sick, illegal or not. Who foots those bills? Taxpayers, of course. Not only in the form of higher costs but higher property taxes to fund the county hospitals. Likewise, a legal citizen could go to the hospital and if they couldn't afford the bill, they would end up here on this website looking into bankruptcy. Is that fair?