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| Advertisement Sponsored Links | | | | No. 91 | 
May 24, 2009, 03:58 PM
 Re: Talk of insurance mandate growing
Those $2 trillion in savings are not from insurance companies alone. The medical associations, hospital associations, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies have all pitched in to say they will lower costs to help lower the cost of Obama's socialized medicine plan.
If for one moment you think a hospital is not going to lower your hourly wage if and when this comes into play....you are sorely mistaken. Savings have to come from somewhere. The hospitals will start with lowering floor nurses wages first.
Enjoy.
 | | No. 92 |
May 24, 2009, 05:15 PM
Re: Talk of insurance mandate growing Originally Posted by multicollinearity  What I find revealing is how the private for-profit health insurance companies are fighting the public (government) insurance option under Obama's plan. Perhaps they know they can't compete with a profit-less system that offers to cover those with pre-existing conditions.
Or perhaps they simply don't want to be legislated out of business. If they can't compete and they go under, that's one thing. If the government mandates that they cease operating, that's quite another.
| | No. 93 |
May 24, 2009, 06:04 PM
Re: Talk of insurance mandate growing
A big problem I have is that in this country, when something is perceived as free, more of it is used whether it is needed or not. "It's free. Why not just go in and have my cold checked out? It won't cost me a thing and I deserve it... etc"
Also, I do not believe for a minute that the premiums (or whatever you want to call it) will be spread out over the whole population to help cover. That would only work if EVERYONE were to pay taxes. In this country, if you have children, you pay far less in taxes than someone else with the same income without children and I guarantee you use more general resources. So the taxpayer without children will be shouldering much more of the cost, again. Not only is it unfair, it is unreasonable.
Give me a solution for both of these and I may reconsider my stance on the whole universal health care thing.
I just think, right now, with our society's "gimme gimme, it's all about me" attitude as a whole, it will never work.
| | No. 94 |
May 24, 2009, 06:54 PM
Re: Talk of insurance mandate growing Originally Posted by DeLySh A big problem I have is that in this country, when something is perceived as free, more of it is used whether it is needed or not. "It's free. Why not just go in and have my cold checked out? It won't cost me a thing and I deserve it... etc"
Also, I do not believe for a minute that the premiums (or whatever you want to call it) will be spread out over the whole population to help cover. That would only work if EVERYONE were to pay taxes. In this country, if you have children, you pay far less in taxes than someone else with the same income without children and I guarantee you use more general resources. So the taxpayer without children will be shouldering much more of the cost, again. Not only is it unfair, it is unreasonable.
Give me a solution for both of these and I may reconsider my stance on the whole universal health care thing.
I just think, right now, with our society's "gimme gimme, it's all about me" attitude as a whole, it will never work.
I know you refer to the US but in Canada, there was the same fear that Canadians would use the system more if they could access it more freely. The hype was that doctors would be overwhelmed. This turned out to be a needless fear. People DID NOT go running for their phones to set up an appointment when they implemented their system. (There was actually a study done.)
Second, I don't know what general resources you are thinking of but I do think that having kids might give me an income tax deduction my income tax deduction doesn't even match a quarter of what I spend on day care alone. Further, I spend more money in the general community on clothes, school supplies, local services such as daycare and chess team and swim lessons. I am taxed on everyone of the expenditures I make which directly feeds into the local county tax system which is used to widen roads and build new facilities that my kids don't use.
I do understand how what you mean but I don't really adopt the "everything is about me attitude." I know that there are kids who are receiving free health care and dentistry from the State of Georgia while I pay for my kids to get care but its not those kids' faults that their parents can't or won't access the system. Its more important to me that they get the care.
I have heard plenty of twenty somethings complain about how they don't have kids so why should they support a health care system that provides maternity coverage to families. After all, they are single. Well, statistics say most of these folks will become parents one day. Do they want the system there for them then? How about when they are old and sick? Do they plan on NOT using medicaid/care taxes collected from my kids' paychecks for their care?
Its an attitude thing. If we keep following that train of thought, we can ask: Why should I pay large premiums for my kids when I know that the same company that made a fortune off of them last year lost $8,000 insuring my father, the hypertensive diabetic who refuses to lose weight and his wife, the hypochondriac?
This is what the insurance companies are banking on: that we all hold the belief that individually each of us does better then all of us collectively. It's a gamble hasn't paid off for most of us so far and it won't ever work.
| | No. 95 |
May 24, 2009, 07:08 PM
Re: Talk of insurance mandate growing
It is not fun to go to the doctor.
| | No. 97 |
May 24, 2009, 07:42 PM
Updated
May 24, 2009 at 07:50 PM by 86toronado
Re: Talk of insurance mandate growing Originally Posted by mwboswell My bottom line on all this "single payor", "universal health insurance" stuff....
1) You want an example of a single payor system in place in USA already = go check the VA system and see what you think!
Have you been to the VA lately? The care that the vets get is top notch, the medical records system is years ahead of anything I've seen at a private hospital, and the patients actually take their meds and show up for their follow up appointments, etc. because they can afford to! Sure, they have to work through some bureaucracy to get their benefits, but it's no worse than the hoops most insurance companies have us jumping through...
| | No. 98 |
May 24, 2009, 07:47 PM
Re: Talk of insurance mandate growing Originally Posted by 86toronado Have you been to the VA lately? The care that the vets get is top notch, the medical records system is years ahead of anything I've seen at a private hospital, and the patients actually take their meds and show up for their follow up appointments, etc. because they can afford to! Sure, they have to work through some buerocracy to get their benefits, but it's no worse than the hoops most insurance companies have us jumping through...
Yes. I have. My ex is a veteran and the care is AMAZING! I am so envious of the care the veterans get there. There are waits and some bureaucracy but they are incredibly organized and dedicated. The number of times he has said, "Thank God for the VA!"...
He doesn't worry about whether he will lose his coverage and not be able to get his meds or whether or not he has the money to pay for whatever they recommend. If anything, VA caregivers can be hard to get rid of. lol. He has a back problem that he is supposed to get xrays for and he is always in a hurry so he doesn't want to stay but every time he needs one, they bend over backwards to make it so he gets an xray. They will call xray and ask how long the wait is or try to fit him in when it will be quick. Its kind of cute actually.
| | No. 99 |
May 24, 2009, 07:53 PM
Re: Talk of insurance mandate growing Originally Posted by DrugReptoNurse Those $2 trillion in savings are not from insurance companies alone. The medical associations, hospital associations, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies have all pitched in to say they will lower costs to help lower the cost of Obama's socialized medicine plan.
If for one moment you think a hospital is not going to lower your hourly wage if and when this comes into play....you are sorely mistaken. Savings have to come from somewhere. The hospitals will start with lowering floor nurses wages first.
Enjoy.
I'm sorry, but there is no reason to think that there will be any effect at all just because there is a single payer system. Instead of hospitals having to write off the majority of care given through the emergency system, they would be compensated at some level. Furthermore, if people had care, they wouldn't let things get bad enough to where they need to go to the ED. This all equals more compensation for hospitals.
Furthermore, it's our current system of private care where hospitals see nurses as a cost and physicians as money makers. Instead of profit, if our single payer system was incentivized by metrics such as whether that hospitals patients get better, early preventative/primary care (from nurses, PAs, and doctors), etc - we could clearly see better results.
Also, as nurses continue to unionize, we can negotiate with organizations to make sure nursing ratios are safe for patients and that in turn, nurses are put in situations that will foster a positive work environment.
Universal healthcare is good for nurses, good for patients, good for doctors, and good for the country. It is simply good public policy and its about time the US joined the rest of modern western (and eastern) society.
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