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Obamacare Website Quietly Deletes Reference to "Free Health Care"
DerekJohnson
Administrator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 62,251 
in Tug Tavern
DerekJohnson
Administrator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 62,251
Comments
I wouldn't have a problem if health care were socialized. Both of my parents had cardiac arrests in the last 10 years, thankfully the hospitals saved them both, but UW hospital charged my dad's insurance $330K for 12 days in the hospital, and another hospital just charged my mom almost $400K for 9 days in the ER. This current for-profit system is NOT sustainable.
loved that fucking movie.
They only medical procedures that have gone down in price over the years as technology improved are the ones where insurance and the governments has pretty much stayed out.
Seriously, spot on. IMO your comments apply to markets where insurance payments make up the majority of revenues in general. Leverage, lack of transparency, and lack of individual direct cost participation that comes with insurance ultimately results in price escalation.
I was fortunate to of had professional-executive employer provided insurance until age 65 at which time I went with Medicare plus a couple different supplemental plans I've tried and which the average working American with family could never afford. I do pay for Medicare and it must be supplemented if I want coverage in the same league with what I had when working.
The problem is the combination of incredibly high cost of health care in our country compared to other modern Western socialized nations and the capitalistic nature of the private health care insurance in America. Because of it's almost total dysfunction when it comes to cost and insurance coverage, the American healthcare system without Obamacare, proclaimed by many to be the best in the World, ranks (last time I looked) something like 16th in the World down there with Costa Rica in terms of access for all Americans. This Third World classification of access to our healthcare system is due primarily to two things:1) greed in the healthcare and insurance industries; and 2) the uninsured population in the USA that still must be cared for by hospitals and other providers passing on the cost to be paid for by the insured.
During most of my 40 years of employment and I retired early at age 62, I was usually in a position to see the monthly medical insurance premiums paid by my employers which were all large corporations. From the time I became a family of 5 in 1970 until I reacged age 65 in 2005, my employer paid insurance increased from approximately $120/mo to $1600/mo........ or 1333% increase in 35 years. Obviously, employers especially small to medium sized companies have been steadily cutting back on employee medical insurance to reduce premiums as their cost of labor. As medical coverage is reduced, the cost of maintaining family health obviously goes up while wages are generally stagnant or going down.
I was against Obamacare when it was passed by Congress because it simply isn't enough. Now, I don't really care because I have Medicare + supplemental coverage. The system of pricing and payment needs to be completely and totally changed to a single (government) payer system with the casino styled healthcare/medical insurance industry waving bye-bye and good riddance.
Some large corporations like Boeing are self-insured and thus are able to pay medical insurance premiums for all of their salaried (non-union) employees to their own investment manager to capitalize anywhere possible and thus hopefully make enough money from the premiums principal to cover all or most employee claims plus the cost of operating their own insurance program with claims being handled for fee by Aetna or some other surety.
If #2 were correct, we would see a dramatic reduction in costs when everyone has coverage. We have not, nor does anyone predict that taht will result in cost reduction for the average American.
http://www.wahbexchange.org/
I agree that access to health care is getting worse by the month. The fucking hospital here in Vegas was even going to move my mother the very day of her cardiac arrest...that is it until they found out that she had very good health insurance...so they kept her. The current system is a dirty crackwhore.
Without decent access - cheap and relatively inexpensive health problems will inevitably become $$$ emergencies later on, which, not surprisingly is ultimately better for the profits of doctors and hospitals in the long run...
The current system's losses are already socialized. Just like with the banks' gambling losses, the people who don't don't or can't pay, simply get their bills rolled over onto everyone else. In the future, immigrants who don't pay their health bills, could be prevented from reentering this country. Capping charges for hospital tests and procedures and capping medical lawsuit awards could make things fair. IMO, the system has to become basically socialized with the costs - an emergency room visit for a fever or sore throat can easily cost $5K now at the wrong hospital.
Obamacare is a wet bandaid - I've read it only funds the system for 7 years in the 10 year plan. It's just going to cause more problems for low-income people who work at retail places like Walmart and Lowes. A single-payer system sounds much better than having to deal with various, for-profit, health-insurance plans...and bills and costs could be better controlled. A hospital just tried to scam an extra $1500 in fake shit on my dad's hospital bill to his insurance - which failed, and then onto him - he reported them, and those charges finally disappeared. All these various health care middlemen just add to the costs. The European health care systems look so much more healthy and sustainable to me.
+ Imagine the ridiculous costs in the current system, if you were to die slowly in a hospital from a fire...
If #2 were correct, we would see a dramatic reduction in costs when everyone has coverage. We have not, nor does anyone predict that taht will result in cost reduction for the average American.
I don't know where you live, but Idaho doesn't have universal coverage and neither do many of the red states in America. SouthenDawg is an insurance industry propagandist and I wouldn't believe anything he posts of this subject. Idaho has come to their senses by eventually pushing aside the nullifiers and set-up the means through assistance from state agencies for people to buy insurance this coming month or the next. At present, the uninsured are still uninsured at least here any many other places such as Texas.
As for greed and cost, the American healthcare system comprised of providers and insurers is the epitome of why America's so-called free market economy is a myth and the alltime biggest con game ever perpetrated on the American people. The first part of any solution is to get rid of the healthcare insurance industry by outlawing it completely. The second then would be to take usury out of the healthcare provider system. Hospitals and clinics and the vast systems that own these institutions can be public non-profit or private for-profit, but they must not have IPO's and stockholders.
There's lots of options out there but the "let the market figure it out" hasn't really been a working solution thus far.
As for greed and cost, the American healthcare system comprised of providers and insurers is the epitome of why America's so-called free market economy is a myth and the alltime biggest con game ever perpetrated on the American people. The first part of any solution is to get rid of the healthcare insurance industry by outlawing it completely. The second then would be to take usury out of the healthcare provider system. Hospitals and clinics and the vast systems that own these institutions can be public non-profit or private for-profit, but they must not have IPO's and stockholders.
Disagree. The government and Keynesian economic policy has fucked up the economy for decades. And your answer is more government, more fucked up monetary policy, and more regulation of anything that resembles the free market? If you think the insurance companies and health care providers have operated under anything that resembles a free market system then even Ludwig Von Mises can't help you.
Sociopaths will ALWAYS destroy/fuck-up a free market, when they have the means to. They would push your grandma over a cliff for $1 if it were legal. Most CEOs and politicians are sociopaths. They are 1-3% of the population. True, free markets don't last very long because of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform
Banking and healthcare would do fine in a free market. But you don't have an example of either of those industries operating in one. National defense is a different animal, but it should be defense, not what we have now.