Do You Want Universal Healthcare?

Patti SW · Aug 8, 2008

Jolie,

Thank you for your response. How many jumped in behind those ideas?

HM2VikingRN, RN · Aug 8, 2008

and please don't post any graphics about how "efficient" medicare is. i'd be laughing too hard to read them.
quote]
thank you! i just can't do graphs. i skip right over them because they just don't mean anything to me.
a picture is worth a thousand erroneus words......(of course if you can't interpret a graph i usually post a link to the source so you try to understand the graph....)

HM2VikingRN, RN · Aug 8, 2008

Is it fail to fund public schools or funding failing public schools $22,000 per student per year in DC with a 50% dropout rate. Vouchers would work better. All these programs you mention give a hand up not a hand out. Give a person money to sit at home and watch Oprah and guess what they are not going to do.
Go to public funded schools
Go to public funded colleges
Join the military and qualify for the G.I. Bill
And they certainly are not going to get a job in the health care field.
Let's look at how much it costs taxpayers when students decide not to ay those student loans and default on them. Of course it will be called predatory student lending.
http://www.studentloanfacts.org/news/budget.htm

You deliberately missed/ignored the point that a large part of your success as an individual can be directly attributed to the investments that taxpayers put into you as an individual through direct subsidies.

I don't advocate handouts but I do advocate smart spending. Spending 30% of our health care dollars on administration does not qualify as smart spending. Your assertions about "failed" government are not supported by the evidence.

Public benefit programs cut the number of poor Americans nearly in half, from 58 million to 31 million.*Medicaid has been shown to reduce infant mortality and child deaths and to increase the likelihood that low-income women receive preventive screening for breast cancer and cervical cancer.*While 40 years ago hunger and malnutrition were not uncommon in some poor areas of the country, the federal Food Stamp Program and other nutrition assistance programs such as WIC and the school meals programs have made severe hunger rare in America today.*By increasing the rewards of low-wage employment, the Earned Income Tax Credit has substantially raised the proportion of single mothers who work, while lifting 2.7 million children out of poverty (in 2002).*Nearly three million people with severe mental impairments receive help from the Supplemental Security Income program, which enables many of them to live independently.

at http://www.cbpp.org/pubs/accomplishments.htm .

Atheos · Aug 8, 2008

Yup, good ole Stanley with his nonsensical ignorance... Oh wait... What is this???

Money from Wal-Mart according to Center for Responsive Politics

Sen. Norm Coleman ® $21,000.

Rep. John Kline ® $21,500

Both in Minnesota....

"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.

---------

As of 2006, Wal-Mart had given $191,500 to current House Homeland Security Committee members since 2000—all but $9,500 of that since the September 2001 attacks. [AFL-CIO, Unchecked How Wal-Mart Uses Its Might to Block Port Security," April 2006]
In the 109th Congress, eighteen of the committee's nineteen Republican members took in $173,000—90 percent of the total—and four of the committee's fourteen Democrats collected $18,500. [AFL-CIO, Unchecked How Wal-Mart Uses Its Might to Block Port Security," April 2006]
In the past eight years, Wal-Mart's Washington Political Action Committee put more than $360,000 into current members of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. In the 109th Congress, twenty-three of the committee's 24 Republicans took Wal-Mart's money—82 percent of the total—compared to only eight of the committee's 17 Democrats. [AFL-CIO, Unchecked How Wal-Mart Uses Its Might to Block Port Security," April 2006]
Wal-Mart also has spent $63,000 on current members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in the past eight years—more than two-thirds of that since September 2001. Ninety-six percent of Wal-Mart's spending went to the committee's Republican members. [AFL-CIO, Unchecked How Wal-Mart Uses Its Might to Block Port Security," April 2006]
The Bush administration released its 2007 homeland security budget proposal at the height of the Dubai Ports World debate, eliminating grants to improve port security and increasing the C-TPAT budget by a mere 1.3 percent—a cut in real terms from the program's 2006 budget request. [AFL-CIO, Unchecked How Wal-Mart Uses Its Might to Block Port Security," April 2006]

Yea, it's all about the Democrats ruining this country... This obviously is what I mean by my statements that people vote on what they believe and not what they know.

Jolie, BSN · Aug 8, 2008

Viking,

Perhaps you have not followed the recent posts in this thread. My retort about the "efficiency" of Medicare was in response to the article in the Miami Herald describing $97 million dollars in payments from Medicare to non-existent companies for the care of non-existent patients in South Florida alone. What do you suppose that would amount to nationwide?

On second thought, I probably don't want to know. It would ruin my day.

Atheos · Aug 8, 2008

Viking,
Perhaps you have not followed the recent posts in this thread. My retort about the "efficiency" of Medicare was in response to the article in the Miami Herald describing $97 million dollars in payments from Medicare to non-existent companies for the care of non-existent patients in South Florida alone. What do you suppose that would amount to nationwide?
On second thought, I probably don't want to know. It would ruin my day.

So the problem is not really Medicare efficiency as much as the efficiency of law enforcement.

Just because people cheat in school DOESN'T mean school is not working or isn't worth it...

advocateforsafety · Aug 8, 2008

If you don't believe there is not incompetance and fraud in the private sector you are mistaken. Try auditing your bill from any hospital now and then and you will find many errors or fraudulent billing that is paid for by private insurance companies. I am not suggesting that most of it is fraud but billing errors exist on all accounts and are paid by insurance or the consumer. When you are billed for millions fraud is just a part of the game. It has to be controlled but to imply that private insurance is immune to that same fraud is naive.

Insurance companies make up for that fraud by denial of payment for needed services.

tntrn, ASN, RN · Aug 9, 2008

A picture is worth a thousand erroneus words......(Of course if you can't interpret a graph I usually post a link to the source so you try to understand the graph....)
Please give me a little more credit than that. When I say they don't mean anything to me, that should not be interpreted to mean I'm too dumb to interpret it. Usually, I feel they really don't tell the story, they take up too much space and it's a choice I make. Of course, you are free to try and make your point using them. I make my choice to ignore them.

Jolie, BSN · Aug 9, 2008

So the problem is not really Medicare efficiency as much as the efficiency of law enforcement.
...

It is not the job of law enforcement to check the veracity of each and every claim received by Medicare. It IS Medicare's responsibility. And obviously it is a responsibility the administrators and/or worker bees don't take seriously and don't do very often. If and when fraud is suspected, then law enforcement should become involved. Not the other way around.

I strongly suspect that the reason fraud detection and investigation received so little attention is that those responsible for preventing it don't feel the "pinch" of wasted dollars. After all, they can always get more money out of the taxpayers, right? And not be held personally accountable for their negligence. Say what you will about private insurance (and many criticisms are justified), BUT there is no way fraud of this magnitude would go undetected and unpunished in a private system. The subscribers and share-holders would never stand for it. The subscribers and shareholders of Medicare (the taxpayers) need to be equally demanding.

$97 million in one small geographic area in one year. Imagine the healthcare that could have been provided with those funds alone!

Jolie, BSN · Aug 9, 2008

If you don't believe there is not incompetance and fraud in the private sector you are mistaken. Try auditing your bill from any hospital now and then and you will find many errors or fraudulent billing that is paid for by private insurance companies. I am not suggesting that most of it is fraud but billing errors exist on all accounts and are paid by insurance or the consumer. When you are billed for millions fraud is just a part of the game. It has to be controlled but to imply that private insurance is immune to that same fraud is naive.
Insurance companies make up for that fraud by denial of payment for needed services.

Don't you check your statements for accuracy? If not, you are just as responsible. I have never been unsuccessful in challenging charges that were made in error.

Atheos · Aug 9, 2008

It is not the job of law enforcement to check the veracity of each and every claim received by Medicare. It IS Medicare's responsibility. And obviously it is a responsibility the administrators and/or worker bees don't take seriously and don't do very often. If and when fraud is suspected, then law enforcement should become involved. Not the other way around.
I strongly suspect that the reason fraud detection and investigation received so little attention is that those responsible for preventing it don't feel the "pinch" of wasted dollars. After all, they can always get more money out of the taxpayers, right? And not be held personally accountable for their negligence. Say what you will about private insurance (and many criticisms are justified), BUT there is no way fraud of this magnitude would go undetected and unpunished in a private system. The subscribers and share-holders would never stand for it. The subscribers and shareholders of Medicare (the taxpayers) need to be equally demanding.
$97 million in one small geographic area in one year. Imagine the healthcare that could have been provided with those funds alone!

Like Enron eh? Worldcom? Yadda yadda yadda... It happens in public and private sectors... The only way they could verify all of those claims is to physically go and check. That requires more investigators which requires more tax money...

Also the Department of Justice is responsible for preventing, investigating and catching fraud. Not any other Dept.

advocateforsafety · Aug 9, 2008

Your missing the point. The private insurance companies are also paying for services not provided. My point is that fraud is a problem experianced by all who are providing insurance. Medicare and Medicaid provide insurance to over 75 million americans and they do need to do a better job of weeding out the fraudulent charges but that is not in my opinion a good argument against universal health care. The Goverment also has a much lower cost associated with the administration and processing of claims. The private sector in some cases spends nearly 30% on the processing and denial of claims. We all pay for it no matter what.

Look at the medicare fraud commited by HCA/Columbia as an example of the high integrity of the private sector. If you believe you are not being screwed by your local hospital and your insurance company when they believe they can get away with it then you are again mistaken.