So what's going to happen to health care now?

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So, for better or worse, we have a new President. What do you think will be the future of health care and the future of nursing as a profession? Will we be better off as nurses or worse? Will we be better off as patients or worse?

Not looking for a political argument....god knows we've had enough of those in the past few days. Emotions are running high and we all have opinions. I'm just curious as to what we can expect.

Which ones? He says something different every time he opens his mouth.

agree, but i would have put colorful adjective before mouth....

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Things are done very differently in the countries you mentioned, and those things drive the cost of healthcare. I've sat in many waiting rooms in the US while my partner has had surgeries. The waiting rooms were all new, with nice furniture, fresh paint and carpets, televisions. Who do you think pays for all that?

When I sat with my dad in an ICU in Canada, the waiting room was a dismal, depressing experience. No windows, crap furniture; very uncomfortable. That's because the health care dollars only fund health care, not all the other niceness that Americans take for granted and don't realize they are paying for.

That's only one small example of why health care costs are different in different places. It's really hard to take in the WHOLE PICTURE of why something can happen in one place and not the other.

There are many of us here in the USA that understand perfectly well who pays for that stuff, and would be happier not to see it

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I think those slob politicians should have to be on the garbage they forced upon the citizens. The only good is those with no insurance have it...but it created others that don't have it and is breaking the bank creating horrible financial issues but then again that was the plan wasn't it ? To make all the citizens live in poverty while the politicians live high on the hot!

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Specializes in Critical Care and ED.

Seeing as he just hired a white supremacist and a radical homophone to his team, you have every right to be. I am also extremely concerned. I fear my marriage rights being taken away.

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The professor that predicted trump's win, is predicting that his own party will impeach him within the year. So that they can put pence in the white house because he is more easily controlled. Remember, the dems can't do it, they don't have the numbers. pence is worse in many ways: voting rights and choice, the leading two.

A president can only be impeached for what is deemed High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Being a lousy president doesn't qualify lol. and no president who was ever impeached, there were three, have ever been removed from office because of it. one resigned, Nixon, two stayed in office, Johnson and Clinton. Never enough to convict any president, so an impeachment was just a paper project.

trump would never give up the presidency willingly he'd have to die in office and then we can get pence lol.

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I read somewhere that Ryan wanted to cut medicare and make it private. That would have a huge effect on this industry.

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I have always had insurance through my employer at a fairly reasonable rate, I hope that continues. But the ACA has been anything but affordable in my state. I was truly shocked at the insurance quotes with the sky high premiums and ridiculously high deductibles my daughter was getting. I actually advised her to just take the tax penalty that first year because it was much less than the insurance would have cost her. Not to mention unless something truly catastrophic happened there is no way a reasonably healthy individual would ever see a penny from the policy as the deductibles are impossible to meet.

I am not at all certain what changes will eventually be made with a republican majority congress and a republican president but I do hope that somehow, some way the affordable part actually happens. But I fear that is an empty hope as the states with the highest premiums and deductibles on the open market have been the states that so wholly disagreed with the ACA that they refused any federal government funds in the first place. It probably won't be long before those federal funds go away for every state.

The ACA was a nightmare for me due to pre existing health issues so I paid the tax penalties for the first two years. Having insurance through my job with the outrageous deductions made it practically impossible to see a doctor and now 7 yrs later my condition got worse.

A nurse told me her brother died because he couldn't afford the outrageous medical cost. Unless you have good healthcare insurance through your job you were one of the ones paying high amounts of money each month to pay for thisetwho weren't working and due to my pre existing condition it was too expensive so I was like it's not fair if someone doesn't work, they get section 8 rent,food ebt and welfare, health care handed to them.

Even people who weren't born and are not green card holders get to have free healthcare if they visit an emergency room and I don't need to explain the free millions of dollars many undocumented people get through home health due to their special need children formula, diapers,chucks, DME, wheelchairs, supplies, trach gtube vent machines, millions of dollars a year but here I am an American citizen, an LVN is being charged hundreds of dollars a month for my healthcare and the deductions our outrageous.

Mind you prior to the ACA I never had insurance issues with any of my jobs prior to nursing and can't comment on what home health and other non hospital jobs insurance were like prior to the ACA.

ACA helped some people but it was a disaster to many hard working people.

I pay my own rent, food etc and as a new nurse although I can easily get home health jobs most don't offer good health care benefits so it was better to not work and get my serious medical condition fixed first sadly.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

As for what to expect going forward, Trump has already stated that plans on keeping key parts of the ACA, including requiring insurers to cover pre-existing conditions, which effectively also requires some variation of a mandate to be covered, and both Trump and Gingrich have consistently called for everyone to be covered.

Gingrich's plan has been to use tax credits to make insurance cheaper, just like the ACA, but when people opt out of buying insurance and then end up in the hospital they would be placed in high risk pools and their unused tax credits from not buying insurance would be used to cover their costs. The problem with that is these tax credits would only cover a small portion of the healthcare costs of these pools, leaving the need to either just cut off a portion of those people from treatment, or establish a second tier of hospitals and other services that provide a more minimal level of care. One option that's been thrown around is to have non-ICU hospitals to keep costs down for this pool of patients.

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Less pay, less demand, less nurses.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.
People can also not make enough money to qualify for a health insurance subsidy, yet not qualify for Medicaid. This situation is known as the "Coverage Gap", and a number of people fall into it.

The coverage gap only happens in states that refused Medicaid expansion.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.
I read somewhere that Ryan wanted to cut medicare and make it private. That would have a huge effect on this industry.

Paul Ryan has admitted that he wants to phase out Medicare for new enrollees, starting next year.

First, Ryan claims that Obamacare has put Medicare under deeper financial stress. Precisely the opposite is true. And it's so straightforward Ryan unquestionably knows this. The Affordable Care Act actuallyextended Medicare's solvency by more than a decade. Ryan's claim is flat out false. Second, I've heard a few people say that it's not 100% clear here that Ryan is calling for Medicare Phase Out. It is 100% clear. Ryan has a standard, openly enunciated position in favor of Medicare Phase Out. It's on his website. It's explained explicitly right there.

Ryan says current beneficiaries will be allowed to keep their Medicare.Says. But after the cord is cut between current and future beneficiaries, everything is fair game. For those entering the system, Ryan proposes phasing out Medicare and replacing it private insurance with subsidies to help seniors afford the private insurance. That is unquestionably what it means because that is what Ryan says. So if you're nearing retirement and looking forward to going on Medicare, good luck. You're going to get private insurance but you'll get some subsidies from the government to pay the bill.

Through all the gobbledygook and bamboozlement, you'll find this line on Ryan's page: "For younger workers, when they become eligible, Medicare will provide a premium-support payment and a list of guaranteed coverage options – including a traditional fee-for-service option – from which recipients can choose a plan that best suits their needs."This means, if you haven't gone on Medicare yet, when you do, you won't get Medicare. You'll get a "premium-support payment" - i.e., a check that will allow you to buy insurance from private insurers. The "support" in the phrase means it won't cover the whole amount. And in any case, rather than Medicare you'll have insurance from an insurance company, which everybody should love because haven't you heard from your parents and grandparents how bummed they were when they had to give up their private insurance for Medicare?

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Love this. I was an advocate of the ACA for that exact reason...it SEEMED that it was going to FORCE competition. Business people and advocates of free market are always screaming to let the markets regulate themselves. In theory the ability to choose insurance would then make insurance cheaper if I have choice beyond my employer. Unfortunately that hasn't been what has happened for many people.

I had a friend who when he initially signed up on the exchanges was quoted something astronomical. He went back on and reapplied and got insurance for less than $100 a month. Don't ask me what he changed but obviously he changed something major!

In regards to what to expect, who knows? The president elect said whatever he needed to say to get into office. I'm not sure he even believed 98% of what came out of his mouth. Further, he isn't a politician and I am not sure he has any earthly idea how things really work in Washington. I think he is going to get one of hell of an education come January 20th.

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