Health Care Reform

meluhn · Dec 2, 2009

However, the devil is in the details. If it ever does come to fruition, this is going to cost a lot. Like electrification, roads, bridges, research, planes, tanks, bombs and soldiers cost a lot. Hopefully we won't screw up the implementation and make the system worse and make providing health care even more difficult than it is now.
The most fortunate among us will end up paying some more to help out the least fortunate. It is hoped that in return for this cost, we will all be strengthened.

This is what concerns me. I dont mind paying for the "unfortunate". However, how we determine who is unfortunate and who is just a lazy leech, is a very gray area. I personally am lucky enough to have great health care coverage through my husbands union. I am happy with it. If a government option goes through, what is the incentive for his union or any new company to even offer hc benefits? Will there be HC rationing? Do we, like England, let our old people (who may have paid into the system for years) go without needed surgeries so that the unmarried welfare mom with 6 kids can keep getting free HC and having babies on our dime? I think welfare reform and immigration reform have to go hand in hand with this issue.

PadawanLearner · Dec 2, 2009

With the present bill there would be free care. Those who can't afford healthcare insurance will get it paid for by the government. There is free care now. And a lot of it.

The government won't be paying anything, every taxpayer will. The mathematics of this bill make absolutely no sense to me. The dollar amount the CBO is saying this bill will cost comes out to around $3 million dollars per U.S. citizen, and that's just the amount they're telling us now (you know it will be higher). And all that is just for six years of coverage! For $3 million, you could pay $3000 per month for private insurance for 80 years of coverage.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Dec 2, 2009

In their most recent communication with Congress, CBO also projected that, absent reform, the cost of an individual policy in the non-group market would be $5500 for a plan with an actuarial value of 60%. This implies that the same plan that cost $5500 without reform would cost $4460 with reform, or almost 20% less.

There is no free care being proposed. The bill establishes consistent marketplaces and benefit sets for each state. (It is true that there are subsidies for the working poor to purchase coverage but they are still going to pay premiums for their coverage.)

HM2VikingRN, RN · Dec 2, 2009

The difference of course, being that I don't feel entitled to have other people pay for that care for me.

Insurance by definition is a social product. We pay premiums to a fund in order to assure that we are not exposed to medical costs beyond what we can bear as individuals.

SilentMind · Dec 2, 2009

In their most recent communication with Congress, CBO also projected that, absent reform, the cost of an individual policy in the non-group market would be $5500 for a plan with an actuarial value of 60%. This implies that the same plan that cost $5500 without reform would cost $4460 with reform, or almost 20% less.
There is no free care being proposed. The bill establishes consistent marketplaces and benefit sets for each state. (It is true that there are subsidies for the working poor to purchase coverage but they are still going to pay premiums for their coverage.)

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091201/D9CAD2M00.html

Actually, the CBO's findings were that it would reduce premiums for those working at large companies by 0-3% employees of small companies will see between a 1% increase and a 2% decrease...essentially unchanged for both groups.

Non group/individuals can expect a 10% to 13% increase. Which they're going to call a reduction because of government subsidies.

AmandaBrittainy · Dec 3, 2009

Capitalism is evil. When other people do it anyways. CEO's that make buisness their lives for years and years and eventually get into a position where they're single handedly responsible for keeping an entire corporation afloat, who's responsible for the well being of each and every employee as well as customer....and actually getting rewarded for it? Eeh-vil. Beyond evil, Greedy. You who work 40 hours a week so you can afford 300 channels of television, laptop computers, air condition, nice houses, private vehicles....That's well, it's certainly not capitalism. That's just you scraping by. Anyone who doesn't believe healthcare should be motivated by capitalism is a hypocrite, or at least the majority. I'm assuming because you're posting on this forum that you're in the nursing field, and that you were blessed with the education, the skills, and the knowhow to make a difference in the world. You're perfectly able to take capitalism out of your own practice, lower your standard of living to those of priests in the middle ages, and devote your volunteering and promoting the existence of free medical facilities. There's no shortage of those who believe as you do, so it shouldn't be difficult to recruit medical professionals of all specialties to your cause.
But of course, thats not what you mean at all. What you really believe is that you should still recieve your ample wages for your 40 hours a week so you can afford the luxuries you've become accustomed to, but others should be condemned for the same actions.

thank you, about 1 in 50 people actually get this concept (thats where I work-so people with advanced education). Im soooooooo sick of people thinking that health care is an entitlement like everything else in this country.

AmandaBrittainy · Dec 3, 2009

You are suggesting something very different here. Mandating that insurance companies offer basic health insurance policies for american citizens which DO NOT increase the profit margin does not mean that people cannot be paid salaries and compensated for their work. It means that for those basic policies 90+% of the premiums go to payment of claims with less than 10% being used for compensation and bonuses. If the insurance companies want to offer more expensive, "designer" policies that provide for private rooms, or other nonessential health services, fine, they may increase their profit margin there. That works pretty well in Germany and a few other places where insurance companies continue to exist and are profitable. The bottom line is that when basic healthcare is limited or rationed or outright denied because insurance companies decide as much in order to improve their profits, that is bordering on amoral. In a country as grand as ours it is clear that we can and should do better.

The American Government CANNOT come in any way close to accomplishing a health system comparable to Germany or Japan. It is too corrupt. Politicians make more money than these despised CEOs of Insurance companies, you can trust that they are also going to do what makes them the most money or re-elections, not what will benefit the American people.

tewdles, RN · Dec 3, 2009

The American Government CANNOT come in any way close to accomplishing a health system comparable to Germany or Japan. It is too corrupt. Politicians make more money than these despised CEOs of Insurance companies, you can trust that they are also going to do what makes them the most money or re-elections, not what will benefit the American people.

I repeat...we can and should do better...do you have any suggestions or are you satisfied with the status quo? Do you feel that we can continue on our path of exploding costs which will result in health care costs consuming 20% of our GDP within a few short years while we have increasing numbers of people who have limited access to affordable care?

Onekidneynurse · Dec 3, 2009

I repeat...we can and should do better...do you have any suggestions or are you satisfied with the status quo? Do you feel that we can continue on our path of exploding costs which will result in health care costs consuming 20% of our GDP within a few short years while we have increasing numbers of people who have limited access to affordable care?

How will top quality care for everyone be cheaper on the whole? Healthcare is never gonna be cheaper that it is today. And tomorrow will be the same... Mass has near universal healthcare and their ER visits have increased. ER visits are more expensive than doctor visits.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Dec 4, 2009

that would result in premiums as much as 59 percent less costly on average than would happen under current law.

In any event we are bending the curve down with a reform bill.

tewdles, RN · Dec 5, 2009

How will top quality care for everyone be cheaper on the whole? Healthcare is never gonna be cheaper that it is today. And tomorrow will be the same... Mass has near universal healthcare and their ER visits have increased. ER visits are more expensive than doctor visits.

Unfortunately our quality is not that great...our outcomes are not that great...(when compared globally) NOT because we don't have some of the best people, facilities, and technology...RATHER, in large part because of the way we distribute and manage our healthcare. I think we can do better. We even have fine models for doing better right here in the USA.

Boognish · Dec 9, 2009

I also think we need reform. I do not agree that capitalism should be the driving force behind healthcare delivery.

Agreed- when the profit motive drives the insurance industry, it creates an incentive for them NOT to pay for care. That's absolutely the wrong way to go about providing healthcare to anybody. In general, we need to look at where the incentives are in private industry.

I think the provisions in the the healthcare reform bill outlawing the denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions, or dropping patients when they get sick are an essential component of healthcare reform. If private companies are going to be making a profit from providing health insurance, then they need to actually be paying for care. No one who has health coverage should have to worry about weather or not they'll be able to use it when they get sick.

However I also believe that the public option is a necessary component of healthcare reform. Why? One, competing with the public option will force the private insurance companies to keep their costs down. I really don't feel bad for the multi-millionaires and billionaires that will have to see their pay cut- or the stockholders that will lose a little cash as the industry adjusts to the public option. Profit is NOT a right in a capitalist system. Second, because it works elsewhere. If you want to call it "socialism," then I'll say that socialized health insurance works. Actually, I'd say that a system that combines socialized insurance with private insurance works best. Look at the WHO's world healthcare system rankings by nation. Many of the top countries have a mix of socialized and private insurance. Countries with a more or less purely public system rank lower- such as the UK and Canada- but many still above the U.S. Cuba is only ranked ONE below the US- and they still have a lower infant mortality rate than we do. I'll also note here that opponents of the public option have been using the term "socialized medicine" rampantly in the media. This is a semantic falsehood- there is nothing in this bill that will socialize hospitals or clinics, something implied in the term "socialized medicine." We're talking about publicly-funded insurance here.

I'm sick of the ideological battle surrounding healthcare reform- using buzzwords like "socialism" and "capitalism" to make arguments for or against certain aspects of the plan. We should be approaching this problem pragmatically and not worrying about what words can be used to describe the solutions. Using a publicly-funded option can help keep costs down, and harnessing the forces of competition on the free-market can help make sure the quality of coverage stays high- but at the end of the day, what matters is whether or not Americans can see a doctor when they need to. Right now, that is absolutely not the case for millions- including myself, being a student who works part-time.

The fact is, the insurance industry is dumping more money into killing healthcare reform than anyone- and that should say something. The only reason any corporation spends money is because they think it'll make them money in the long run- and thus far the private health insurance industry has been making their money by screwing over their customers. Protecting their profits should not be the concern of OUR representatives.