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.

Specializes in CICU, Telemetry.

1. Donald Trump says that we all have the right to affordable, quality healthcare, and he has a plan, a great plan. For one, I'm super curious about this 'great plan' and I can't wait to see what it is. Mind you, I totally don't think it exists, and I don't think he realizes all the intricacies involved, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

2. Things will go like they are. Actual poor people, the disabled, and the elderly end up with halfway decent socialized medicine subsidized largely by the middle class. YAY Medicare/Medicaid. We've had this limited socialized healthcare my whole life. By we, I mean this country, because I don't get ****.

3. Rich people will continue to get whatever healthcare they want, because they can afford it with or without insurance.

4. The middle class gets poorer by paying for government subsidies that don't actually benefit them, and continues to struggle to afford their medical expenditures all around. The majority of us end up with high deductible health plans that MAY benefit us once we reach our max out of pocket (until you realize that your max out of pocket does not cover prescription drug costs, costs of 'elective procedures', and a bunch of other even more ridiculous things. There is no real max out of pocket. They will let you spend as much as you are willing and/or able to.

And vent time? Obama said my PCP and GYN yearly check ups and pap smears have to be covered by any plan that I choose. I went to my PCP for the first time in several years. I wasn't sick, but I figured, what the hell, it's free, right? No, his office managed to bill me for a physical as well as a well visit (for the same 20 minute appointment?) so yeah, one of those two got covered, the other didn't, and I still paid over 100 dollars for my yearly visit. My doctor's cash rate is $94. It would have been cheaper for me to lie and tell my PCP that I don't have insurance when I visited his office, and paid the cash rate. Let's all let that one reverberate a little bit.

Because years ago we made it illegal to turn away a woman in active labor in the Emergency Room, that has somehow spun completely out of control to the point where we are not allowed to turn away any street urchin that stumbles into the ER weekly for their weekly fall/non-cardiac chest pain/dilaudid fix/attention/turkey sandwich, and we are penalized if it's not the BEST DAMN TURKEY SANDWICH they have EVER ENJOYED, WITH A SMILE, and WITHIN 15 minutes of arrival. Our country spends too much on healthcare because we don't know where to draw the line, and we can't support our Nurses and Doctors, the front-line experts if you will, so they practice CYA medicine with a smile. I admitted a patient last night with an 'NSTEMI' (read: anxiety. No bump in enzymes after 12h and 2 sets in ED, no EKG changes). She received a 2 view CXR ($400+) and head CT ($1,200) in Emergency room. She received a 2 day ICU stay (4k/day). She received a cardiac catheterization ($9,200) that was not clinically indicated. She has bullied her way into a MRI for a subacute, incidental finding on her CT scan (neurosurgery said she didn't need an MRI). Anyway, another $1,200. So that's a minimum of $16,000 that this one woman racked up in 2 days. Don't worry, she won't be paying it. The best part? She comes every 2 weeks. So even when she's just turned away from the ER after repeating labs, cxr, and head ct EVERY TWO WEEKS, that's $1,600 for the ER visit plus $1,600 in testing. $3,200 a visit. Multiply that by her average 25 visits over the last year: $80k in unnecessary visits to the ER and SOME of the testing that they do on her every damn time. So even if she only managed to get admitted once this year (and I know it was at least 3 times but now I'm just getting mad) our total tax burden for this one individual is around $100k YEARLY. And there is NOTHING MEDICALLY WRONG WITH HER EXCEPT SHE NEEDS A VALIUM (but doesn't have access to a PCP to give her some). All I want is to see my PCP for 20 minutes once a year, but I pay more to do that than this fine individual. If you'll excuse me now, I need a valium. Or the whole bottle.

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I'm going to take the other route...I think insurance will be back to being more affordable. my insurance premiums went up three fold because of ACA. My insurance premium was twice my mortgage. I am going back to school and we don't have a job that provides insurance. I think they will take the ****** parts out and keep the good parts.

I think people are panicking a bit prematurely.

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I've been a nurse for 10 years in Pa our rates are so high most nurses don't have adequate or no health insurance at all.

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Seriously? Why don't you wait and see? One thing for sure, it can't get any worse.

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I don't think they can totally repeal it but hey need to repeal the financial penalties toward employers who pay for "Cadillac" insurance for their employees. What, we are supposed to penalized for working hard? This whole plan was designed to eventually become socialized healthcare. I guess I will be performing a lot more medical screenings in the ER unless they can control the cost and actually provide affordable healthcare

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Democrats are jumping ship watching the protesting thugs in the streets. It probably won't affect healthcare all that much. Trump will dump Obamacare but keep the bits where you can't be dropped for pre-existing health issues and allowing kids to stay on their parent's insurance until they are 26.

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Specializes in RN.

Agreed!!!!

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Instead of listening to people who don't know what they're talking about, educate yourself on Trumps policies, don't watch CNN and make your own opinions based on FACTS and not people's bias.

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Democrats are jumping ship watching the protesting thugs in the streets. It probably won't affect healthcare all that much. Trump will dump Obamacare but keep the bits where you can't be dropped for pre-existing health issues and allowing kids to stay on their parent's insurance until they are 26.

I agree, but if we are going to be treating 26 year olds as children I also think they should not be allowed to drink, vote, or be drafted. If the claim is (and I think it is a silly one) that these are children, than they should be treated like children. You could make exceptions for people 26 and under that do not use their parent's health insurance, but I think that should be about it.

If you want to be treated as an adult, you need to have the responsibilities of an adult. Throwing 18-26 year olds onto the insured ranks for free (which is what that is, insurance companies do not ask how many children you have and adjust. So if the parents were going to have to pay for suzy anyway because she is 5, John gets a free ride for 8 years). Waving a magic wand and saying "well this should be this way" does not cut it. People have to understand that these "freebies" are not free. Someone will pay for them eventually, and anyone who tells you differently is selling you something like:

Everyone will be covered, and if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, plus somehow throwing 20 million uninsured sick people into health insurance will magically drop how much you pay. In addition we will make the insurance companies cover 'children' until 26 and the resources that consumes will effect no one. Oh, and if you have health insurance now, you can drop it and just pick it up again if you get sick.

It is a politicians nature to lie, and it should be a voter's responsibility to see when they are. I know, or at least hope, that when they did ACA they knew what they were saying was B.S., because if not you are talking about a whole new level of incompetence.

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Specializes in Geriatrics/Med-Surg/ED.

I'm being cautiously optimistic, hoping for middle of the road, rather than extreme left or right.

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Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.
From what I understand Trump wants to focus on the cost of health care and not so much the insurance companies. He wants to create more price transparency with providers to give the consumer more power and financial awareness when making healthcare decision. I think he also wants to allow for the sale of health insurance across state lines. Might level the playing field and give customers more options. He also wants to make it so individuals can use health insurance costs as a tax deduction on their taxes. Medicaid and Medicare administration will be given to the States with little federal overhead with incentives to weed out fraud, waste, and abuse of the system to ensure the people who truly need to coverage get it.

Let's be honest, insurance premiums were rising long before Trump announced he was even running. While the ACA made health insurance easier to get, it did not address the issue of the bloated costs of equipment, medications, etc. I've had people tell me that they hesitated to get life saving treatments and medications, because their insurance companies refused to pay it and it was too expensive to cover out of pocket. Trump isn't even in power yet and people across the board have noticed their premiums and deductibles skyrocketing and that honestly has nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with the fact that insurance companies have no incentive to offer us affordable premiums. There is little competition in the current market. Insurance companies know they will retain their customers regardless, because there is really nowhere else to go. Most people have insurance through their employers, but those who don't really don't have many options and don't qualify for federal aid, because they make too much money. Many of them are self employed or are small business owners. So they are stuck with crappy Market Place insurance that really doesn't cover much outside of preventative care and health care in the event of something catastrophic and even then you are still responsible for thousands before the plan even kicks in.

I have heard analysts say the same. Allowing across states business will.create competition and force the.insurance companys to reduce cost.

I'm no expert...just what I heard those who are say.

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I feel that things were already deteriorating with whole Obama care so not sure anyone can change the downward spiral it was taking. I doubt we see any real change for now
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