[ingelein]

Originally Posted by Atl_John

"The Free Market put us into the predicament we are in today.It was an experiment ruined by a human trait, GREED.Also, I disagree that kids who have been privatley educated do much better on national tests.All my four children, all publicly educated , all college grads, ranked in the 98-100th percentile throughout school. My daughter aced the LSATS. We as Americans with intelligence can come up with a Universal Healthcare plan, we as Americans can reform where reform is needed, but first we need to VOTE in people of EXCELLENCE, we should not make the same mistakes by locking ourselves into any one ideology. Change and the freedom to change, reform, etc is what made this country great and will keep it that way, we are stagnating in an old political/economic ideology, FREE MARKET, Milton Friedman type , its not working."

Ohhh....My....God......the free market put us into the predicament we are in today. Have you fallen off your rocker? The Free Market is what has made this country what we are today, the richest, most powerful nation in the WORLD. Don't like a "Free Market" I suggest you live elsewhere, try China or Germany, see what 10+% unemployment gets you. My family didn't come to this country because we had life SO much better over in Germany, my family came to America because this IS the land of opportunity. A land where if one works hard enough they can make it, it wasn't the government who got her through school.....it was her who got herself there .Alt John, my family came here as German displaced persons in 1955.We lived for 10 years in a DP camp in Linz Austria, where I was born. We escaped from Yugoslavia, with the Russians on our heels.We had lived in german communities for over 200 years and considered ourselves Yugoslavian citizens.My family has embrace the freedoms that this country has given us and I am allowed to speak freely because of them, as we all are.I do not believe that in any way , shape or form Universal Healthcare makes a country socialist . Do you think Germany is a socialist country, or Sweden, Denmark, England , Australia? China who has embraced Capitalism , last I looked they were Comminist. My family and I LOVE this country, my brother fought in Vietnam, my daughter is a Navy Nurse, I am very proud to be an American, we have the choice of liberal or conservative views. Of course I KNOW my daughter did not get through school as succesfully as she did because of the government, she was afforded an education with help of the government.This is STILL a land of opportunity, Universal healthcare will NOT change that. RELAX. Vote in People of Excellence, sounds more like left leaning liberal elitism. You have obviously not studied Economics at ALL if you believe Milton Friedman was wrong, please go pick up a text book and read it before you try to spout your economic ideals. I'm done arguing this with you, if you wish to argue economic theory, fine, but we will do it elsewhere.You only debase yourself and discredit our fine German heritage by being so insulting.There are folks out there that do not believe Milton Friedman to be the savior of humanity, maybe you should do some more homework too. Back to the threads Intended purpose.....the only way to make a system where you can have care for all at an affordable price is where you have doctors who aren't making Half a Million a year, where you have patients who actually DO what they are told (ie. diabetics taking care of themselves like they should, etc) PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELFWhy do you think that people who advocate Universal healthcare do not beleive in personal responsibility? hospitals not charging 10,000 a day for a one day stay, 100,000 plus for surgery, and where you don't have frivolous law suits and aspirin costing 12 dollars. Now I think a lot of this is that we have For Profit Hospitals which I have no problem with, I'm all for a for profit hospital, but it is the utter greed that I don't like. YES, GREED is BAD, I agree with alot of what you just wrote here.Only we differ on how to get there. I have seen how hospitals can overcharge insurance companies just to make a buck, its not right, and it causes a lot of problems. Now in a perfect world where everyone's honest that wouldn't be a problem. Could that be why we could use government oversight, or who should we trust?

A system that you could have could be based off of the same sort of system we have now. The more you go to the doc's the higher your premium goes, why should someone who never goes to the doc, have to pay more? What about a person with a Chronic disease?You go to the ER every three days, well you should have a higher premium, you use the resources more, as for how to decide how to charge the premiums or where to begin, well I'm not sure. I don't think someone just because they have a higher income should be made to pay more than someone with a lower income.Whoever said they should?Healthcare for All, remember? I do believe there should be a level at which you don't have to pay. You could do it possibly like a Flat tax initially. Everyone pays 2% of their income, no way of getting out of paying that. Anyone who makes under 22,000 yr single, 30,000yr married combined, and under 40,000 yr married w/kids combined pay nothing. That is JUST an example. After that you pay 2 percent. Depending then on some arbitrary formula such as you are allowed to go up to 1% of your yearly income in billable doctors/hospital expenses, over that we raise your premium. Now that means your gonna have to make the rate at which you will reimburse lower, and drug costs will have to be lower as well, etc. There might be tiers on meds like we have now, generics are 5, brand name are 15, and nonprefered are 25 or 30. Something along those lines. I think having a doctor bill $90 for an office visit is absolutely absurd but I understand why they have to do that.

Insurance company's either reimburse at a Flat rate based on the code or as a percentage of. I know many a time we had to up the price so that we could get the retail value, now while its HIGHLY illegal, and extremely immoral, it does happen and it happens a lot in many offices. So I would go to a flat fee for services rendered. Same with surgeries, flat fee for a CABG based on the number of bypasses needed, etc. And this amount should be set so that the doctors still make a nice living commiserated with all the work they have had to do to get there, etc for nurses, and hospitals.

I would also employ FAR more PA's and NP's in the PCP areas. These pop up walmart mini-clinics I think are great. Fairly cheap, quick, and easy. NP's/PA's are more than capable of handling the vast majority of problems that walk into offices.

The next thing I would do is have a NP or PA be a triage person that can determine if the "emergencies" coming into the ER are actual emergency's or are merely someone coming to the ER because they don't have insurance and their nose is runny. I say a NP/PA only because I want someone who is able to diagnose illness not someone who is just trained to see things that are wrong but is not able to say what it is. For those noses that are runny, etc i would have a separate Urgent Care sort of clinic. Free up the ER, and you can save a good amount of money by having them go to the Urgent Care.

And the biggest thing of ALL is to have an element of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY built in to the system. I've said it once but it should be said again, as I recall, England's system was literally bankrupting the country and they have since instituted a form of personal responsibility in there. If I'm wrong any folks from the UK, please correct me. What about Germany, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, etc.? Is it possible to make our own American Style of Universal Healthcare, learn from the other countries mistakes?

That I think is a good start, the more you use, the more you pay, and personal responsibility built in.

You seem to be a nice smart young man and do you know you could have said all that without being insulting, demeaning or rude? Now relax, I plan on having a good German beer and ponder the nature of man......

[HM2Viking]

[quote=Atl_John;2094746]
Insurance company's either reimburse at a Flat rate based on the code or as a percentage of. I know many a time we had to up the price so that we could get the retail value, now while its HIGHLY illegal, and extremely immoral, it does happen and it happens a lot in many offices.
quote]

This behavior is the number one cause of health care inflation. Raise the prices charged to the insured in order to pay for the cost of the care for the uninsured. This just substantiated the case for single payer.

[passgasser]

Been really busy lately, but have tried to keep up on this thread. As I see it, there have been a number of objections raised by those of us who don’t really think that we need to scrap a system that serves 85% of our population. I would point out (again) that there is no other system that serves that high a number of our population that people believe needs to be scrapped. Just for fun, I’d like to list those objections for which there has been no really good response:

-One of the reasons we have been given for the high cost of healthcare in this nation is the wasteful amount of healthcare dollars being spent on administration by the healthcare insurance companies. We are told that this expenditure on administration runs as high as 30%. The solution we are given is to turn over all healthcare to the government. This is the same government whose social agencies spend as much as 60% of their total budget on administration. "Trust us, it won’t be that high with healthcare." Why not? Given that many of the social agencies serve only a small percentage of the population, it is far more likely that a healthcare administration, charged with taking care of 100% of our healthcare will spend as much as twice what is now spent in administration. Want me to trust the government? Fine. Fix the agencies that exist now, cut their administrative expenditures to less than 30% of their total budget. Then I might begin to accept your premise.

-On that same line, the government also has a long history of vastly underestimating the cost of social programs. It has recently been determined that the Medicare prescription drug benefit is going to cost 1.2 trillion, more than double the original estimate. What will be the cost of complete healthcare for all?

-When the PATRIOT act was passed, there was a great outcry over our supposed loss of privacy. Yet the very same people who raised these objections want the government to take over our healthcare. How do you propose that the government do this without having access to our healthcare information? This actual loss of privacy will be an elephant, compared to the imagined mouse detractors of the PATRIOT act are so worried about.

-Considering the administrative fees and the government’s ability to underestimate what social programs will cost, it is impossible to even imagine our government taking on this responsibility without a significant tax increase. I am taxed enough thank you. I don’t wish to seem heartless, but am frankly tired of people wanting to add more and more social expenditures to our national budget, and requiring me to pay for it.

-On those same lines, when exactly are my taxes enough? When am I allowed to keep some of what I earn for myself and my family without being called greedy and heartless? How high a taxation level is too high, or is there any such limit? Do we continue to raise taxes to the point that all income is 100% taxed, and the government provides for all our needs?

-Many of you have talked about the difficulties others (or even yourselves) have had under the present system. The answer you have is to call healthcare a right, and make sure it is available to all. Of course, that ignores a fundamental principle I have pointed out before, namely the fact that there are no rights conferred on some that others must support. But more to the point, how many other families, in addition to my own, must I be responsible for? And why?

-There are certain inescapable financial conclusions that may be drawn from having the government take over all healthcare. The first is that taxes for everyone will go up, as I already stated. But it is also true that reimbursement will go down, and that reduction will be reflected somewhere. If you think that it will be reflected in the salaries of CEO’s and other hospital executives, you are sadly mistaken. It will be reflected in a reduction in the salaries of those who provide the care, from doctors to nurses to x-ray techs, and so on,

Given all that, I cannot see how one can support the idea of a federally run, national single-payer healthcare system. While it would create an advantage for a few, for the vast majority of our nation, it would impose hardships in the form of higher taxation, lower wages (in the healthcare industry), less choice, and greater governmental interference in, and hence control over, our lives. No, I don’t see that as an improvement.

Let me ask one more question, and I’d really like an answer: What’s next? If this gets passed, and a national healthcare plan is enacted, will this finally be enough? Will this be the end to the establishment of social programs in the name of "leveling the playing field?" If not, what is next? What is the next issue that I will be called upon to pay for, because after all there are those who don’t have what I have? I would remind you all of a cliché, that is elegant in it’s truth: A guarantee of equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcomes.

[Uberman5000]

Originally Posted by Uberman5000

Oh, by the way you can hate on Wal-Mart all you want but they bring alot of goods to POOR people at very affordable prices, but I guess you have a real problem with that. I guess you dont want those poor poor people to be able to afford the things that you can, how shameful of you! Arent you just ridden with guilt?

lets blame wal-mart and halliburton for everythnig wrong in America shall we.

I actually like giving tax subsidies to oil companies and walmart because they are central to our economy and industry. I would rather give tax incentives to those companies than welfare crap.

[Uberman5000]

Originally Posted by rngreenhorn

I just hope that most America voters don't truly believe that it is the governments job to feed us, shelter us, educate us, keep us healthy, and provide for our happiness.

As far as the "evil greedy corporations," when was that last time a poor person paid your salary.

I hope that most voters in America are not getting their political training from you tube. Wasn't The Bill of Rights aka the 1st 10 amendments to the Constitution put there specifically to limit governmental power?

I totally agree that the bureaucracy involved in health care could use some major tweaking. But if someone believes that our government can get its hands of billions of tax dollars for health care and not create major waste, their smoking crack. Ever hear of "earmarks" into bills?

Yeah, what you watch on you-tube is 100% accurate reporting, even the 9/11 conspiracy right? that is why all the leftists try to get you to watch it, so that reality can be distorted and the socialist agenda can be gradually implemented. The secular progressive left seems to think that america should be a socialist country and that health care is a constitutional right. After they get their way with health care another government entitlement program will be next.

[Uberman5000]

Originally Posted by ingelein

.Also, our country managed to end slavery and gave women the right to vote, SURPRISE! we survived as a country, reforms are what has kept this country free, not the status quo.

Now ingelein is trying to say there is a moral equivalency between ending slavery and universal healthcare, lol. What other reforms do you want? Gay Marriage? Sorry 90% of America is not interested in reforms like that, but the leftists seem intent on gradually introducing it over time and making doing the best they can to make you feel guilty for not accepting anything they put forward.

[Uberman5000]

Originally Posted by Atl_John

With no one but Politicians policing the system we would end up just as bad as Canada and the UK.

No John, you have got it all wrong...Universal Healthcare in America will save all of mankind and will work flawlessly, like a well oiled machine. After that we can start giving universal healthcare to illegal aliens, along with college scholarships.. Oh I am sorry, did I say illegal aliens, what i meant to say was "Undocumented Migrants Seeking Citizenship". Please forgive me for that I hope that I didn't offend anyones "sensitivities".

[Uberman5000]

Originally Posted by HM2Viking

have said and cited sources that show that the Wealthy pay a lower marginal tax rate than the middle/working classes. There is no soak the rich mentality in my data. There is a call for true progressivity in the tax system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/bu...rssnyt&emc=rss

LOL - Accurate reporting from a rag like the New York Times. That rag doesn't have any agenda does it? Wait, wasn't that rag the same rag had a front page that told the terrorists in Europe we were listening in all their phone calls?

[Uberman5000]

Originally Posted by ingelein

The Free Market put us into the predicament we are in today.It was an experiment ruined by a human trait, GREED.Also, I disagree that kids who have been privatley educated do much better on national tests.All my four children, all publicly educated , all college grads, ranked in the 98-100th percentile throughout school. My daughter aced the LSATS. We as Americans with intelligence can come up with a Universal Healthcare plan, we as Americans can reform where reform is needed, but first we need to VOTE in people of EXCELLENCE, we should not make the same mistakes by locking ourselves into any one ideology. Change and the freedom to change, reform, etc is what made this country great and will keep it that way, we are stagnating in an old political/economic ideology, FREE MARKET, Milton Friedman type , its not working.

LOL -- The free market is what this country is BUILT ON - that is what AMERICA is all about and you are sitting here saying its not working because of the uninsured. So the free market doesnt work, what is the solution? What is you're solution mr. president..SOCIALISM? Is that what you advocate? So the free market is motivated by GREED --- And you being a lib are motivated by GUILT.

I would rather be greedy as opposed to feeling guilty for everyone else's problems - how much can one self loathe before becoming a miserable person.

[Uberman5000]

Originally Posted by ingelein

You seem to be a nice smart young man and do you know you could have said all that without being insulting, demeaning or rude? Now relax, I plan on having a good German beer and ponder the nature of man......

Is this the only response that can be generated from the comments regarding getting rid of the "old free market system" that is the foundation of the United States? Pretty weak - I want to hear the thoughts on said statement, more importantly what particularly was going through saids mind when said statement was made.