Many of you all have not responded to my post asking for a discussion of health care reform views, both conservative and liberal.
I'm the liberal.
Here are the last couple of comments posted by CatnLion suggesting various reform ideas.
He's the conservative.
Really, are they a start? What are your constructive comments?
Do I have any OS friends out there? Anyone?
denese
-------------------
Denese,
You have me so very wrong.
I believe we need some reform for insurance. Not just all of those that the bill is calling for. If you want to control costs then tell the lawyers to screw off and get some tort reform going. How many millions did Senator Edwards make in suing medical insurance providers. If you are hurt or something you should get what is coming to you. To add millions on top of what you deserve as punitive damages is nuts. What does a lawyer get, 40%? That's money that should go to the victim to care for what ever happened to them.
I like my doctor. I would like to keep him. But if for some reason I have to change medical plans that is not an option. Yes, you have options right up until something changes then you only have one option, the public option. End of the road. No finding another insurance plan you like. There is no appeal. The bill says there is to be no legal reviews by the courts. There is also a survivability clause so if the courts throw something out the rest of the bill stands.
As for the 50mm number, I'm in that number. I was without insurance for about a week. My DIL and child is in that number because until her mother ragged her butt she refused to pay the money for health insurance. I don't know what she was spending her money on. She lived with us and we payed all the bills. That 50mm number is not a “pure” number. Give me a number of chronically uninsured, not some number that works for this argument.
Yes I do know what 5k means to some body. I've lost my ass more than once. We like where we live so we stayed but we live in the middle of a farm in a 1969 mobile home. We moved there because I had to have 2 hip surgeries to prevent hip replacements. I spent 2 years sitting in a chair. My long term disability paid $1096 a month gross. It wiped us out. Get SSDI, nope, it takes 3 years to get a hearing in NC after all the administrative procedures are done. As for living paycheck to paycheck, that ended about 6 months ago, except for the $16k in unpaid child support and about $15k in student loans. I'm on a catch up plan on both of those and we don't worry about have the electricity shut off now.
Reading your reply about traveling across state lines and state high risk pools has such a spin on it I'm dizzy. That I know of, no state has an assigned risk pool for health insurance, but we need it. Yes insurance companies will deny people on underwriting rules. That is their right as a private business. But they need to accept their share of those who are denied. That needs to be in a reform bill, not a government program. Just force insurance companies to take them on some sort of rotation schedule or other fair plan. Set up the standards for a “forced plan” so there will be a minimum that everybody will have. If you want a program where the government pays part or all of the premiums based on need, I would be okay with that. What I didn't say is that there is a plan the government runs like the proposed public option.
The limitations on where I can buy an insurance policy needs to go also. If the plan I want is sold in LA I shouldn't have a problem buying it just because I live in NC. That's another reform item I would like to see.
Obama thinks he can control costs and save money, let him prove it. They have never done it before, either party, so why should I think they can do it now. What program have they ever saved money on? If he can figure out how to do it then I'll be more open to him spending money to do things.
You talked about electronic medical records. I like that. They use them at the VA. I go anywhere and they know everything. They are at the point where even x-rays are no film. They shoot them and they instantly show up on my doctors computer. My ortho guy (non VA) uses the same thing for records, but not x-rays. The records are just for his office but it doesn't matter which provider I see they all have the info in front of them and there is no chasing paper records. A system where the government has the right to review them or utilize them for information mining, no.
You can reward Dr's for quality care. The reason that there are lots of tests is because of the lawyers. Again they practice medicine but they also have to practice CYA. You didn't order a test then if they have to go to court the lawyer goes after why you didn't do it and it would have saved them etc. BTW, my step-brothers father was a doctor. His office was at the end of the road we lived on so we saw lots of this kind of stuff.
I am worried worried about the readmit provisions you talk about. After my first surgery I went about 3 months and ended up back in the hospital. They thought I had developed a blood clot in my hip and it had broken loose causing me to have a stroke. After a few days in the hospital looking for the clot they determined that I didn't have a stroke but they don't know what caused the problem. What worries me is if a doctor didn't readmit me because it would have cost him his bonus money so he would have just sent me home and it was a stroke or something.
As for the Medicare programs, I'm going to defer to you on those. While I'm getting there, and my mail box is full of AARP stuff, I've not looked at it. My wife did before we were married as she was on Part D and who knows what. I just can't speak to that.
I do know that what Dr's are paid hasn't been raised in years and Dr's are not taking Medicare in some places.
Look there are lots of things with health care that we can fix. We do agree on that. We also agree that it needs to be done, I just think this is the wrong way to go. My way, would insure everyone and not have a giant program or a government option, but the end results are the same.
Where you really confused me is that this has something to do with President Obama himself. It doesn't. I don't know where you got that.
You have me so very wrong.
I believe we need some reform for insurance. Not just all of those that the bill is calling for. If you want to control costs then tell the lawyers to screw off and get some tort reform going. How many millions did Senator Edwards make in suing medical insurance providers. If you are hurt or something you should get what is coming to you. To add millions on top of what you deserve as punitive damages is nuts. What does a lawyer get, 40%? That's money that should go to the victim to care for what ever happened to them.
I like my doctor. I would like to keep him. But if for some reason I have to change medical plans that is not an option. Yes, you have options right up until something changes then you only have one option, the public option. End of the road. No finding another insurance plan you like. There is no appeal. The bill says there is to be no legal reviews by the courts. There is also a survivability clause so if the courts throw something out the rest of the bill stands.
As for the 50mm number, I'm in that number. I was without insurance for about a week. My DIL and child is in that number because until her mother ragged her butt she refused to pay the money for health insurance. I don't know what she was spending her money on. She lived with us and we payed all the bills. That 50mm number is not a “pure” number. Give me a number of chronically uninsured, not some number that works for this argument.
Yes I do know what 5k means to some body. I've lost my ass more than once. We like where we live so we stayed but we live in the middle of a farm in a 1969 mobile home. We moved there because I had to have 2 hip surgeries to prevent hip replacements. I spent 2 years sitting in a chair. My long term disability paid $1096 a month gross. It wiped us out. Get SSDI, nope, it takes 3 years to get a hearing in NC after all the administrative procedures are done. As for living paycheck to paycheck, that ended about 6 months ago, except for the $16k in unpaid child support and about $15k in student loans. I'm on a catch up plan on both of those and we don't worry about have the electricity shut off now.
Reading your reply about traveling across state lines and state high risk pools has such a spin on it I'm dizzy. That I know of, no state has an assigned risk pool for health insurance, but we need it. Yes insurance companies will deny people on underwriting rules. That is their right as a private business. But they need to accept their share of those who are denied. That needs to be in a reform bill, not a government program. Just force insurance companies to take them on some sort of rotation schedule or other fair plan. Set up the standards for a “forced plan” so there will be a minimum that everybody will have. If you want a program where the government pays part or all of the premiums based on need, I would be okay with that. What I didn't say is that there is a plan the government runs like the proposed public option.
The limitations on where I can buy an insurance policy needs to go also. If the plan I want is sold in LA I shouldn't have a problem buying it just because I live in NC. That's another reform item I would like to see.
Obama thinks he can control costs and save money, let him prove it. They have never done it before, either party, so why should I think they can do it now. What program have they ever saved money on? If he can figure out how to do it then I'll be more open to him spending money to do things.
You talked about electronic medical records. I like that. They use them at the VA. I go anywhere and they know everything. They are at the point where even x-rays are no film. They shoot them and they instantly show up on my doctors computer. My ortho guy (non VA) uses the same thing for records, but not x-rays. The records are just for his office but it doesn't matter which provider I see they all have the info in front of them and there is no chasing paper records. A system where the government has the right to review them or utilize them for information mining, no.
You can reward Dr's for quality care. The reason that there are lots of tests is because of the lawyers. Again they practice medicine but they also have to practice CYA. You didn't order a test then if they have to go to court the lawyer goes after why you didn't do it and it would have saved them etc. BTW, my step-brothers father was a doctor. His office was at the end of the road we lived on so we saw lots of this kind of stuff.
I am worried worried about the readmit provisions you talk about. After my first surgery I went about 3 months and ended up back in the hospital. They thought I had developed a blood clot in my hip and it had broken loose causing me to have a stroke. After a few days in the hospital looking for the clot they determined that I didn't have a stroke but they don't know what caused the problem. What worries me is if a doctor didn't readmit me because it would have cost him his bonus money so he would have just sent me home and it was a stroke or something.
As for the Medicare programs, I'm going to defer to you on those. While I'm getting there, and my mail box is full of AARP stuff, I've not looked at it. My wife did before we were married as she was on Part D and who knows what. I just can't speak to that.
I do know that what Dr's are paid hasn't been raised in years and Dr's are not taking Medicare in some places.
Look there are lots of things with health care that we can fix. We do agree on that. We also agree that it needs to be done, I just think this is the wrong way to go. My way, would insure everyone and not have a giant program or a government option, but the end results are the same.
Where you really confused me is that this has something to do with President Obama himself. It doesn't. I don't know where you got that.
Denese,
I was just in taking a shower and I was thinking. Does she understand why I like lots of ideas that have nothing to do with the government? So let me tell you some of why.
First I really do believe that government doesn't create wealth, only use it. They do have a payroll because it does take people, places and things to make everything move. They don't make cars, well now they do, planes, boats, shoes or anything else.
I know you are a lawyer but you dropped out so you're okay in my book. I'm a truck driver. I'm over regulated.
The DOT tells the trucking industries how trucks have to be built, loads secured and stuff that is their job. They then go on to tell me how many hours a day I can drive. How many hours I have to take off before I can drive again. But wait, there's more. They tell me how many hours I have to be in bed. They have the right to stop me and put me out of service because they think I'm tired. It doesn't matter if I've been driving 10 hours or 10 minutes. DOT thinks I tired, I go off duty no appeal I'm done for the next 10 hours.
Let's get extreme. Remember I live 300+ days a year in the truck with a bed, 2 seats, a couple cabinets and about 18 square feet of floor space. I have to not only record but graph when I start, end, fuel, but I also tell them when I stop to take a piss!
They used a check list, until a judge finally stopped it until they can have a hearing about it, where they judged how tied I was by answering such questions as how dirty is my cab. Do I have a TV and believe it or not how often I MASTURBATE! When is the last time you were stopped on the side of the road and asked how often you masturbate by a law enforcement officer?
Government has it's place. We just need them to go back to what they were created to do and get out of our life.
I was just in taking a shower and I was thinking. Does she understand why I like lots of ideas that have nothing to do with the government? So let me tell you some of why.
First I really do believe that government doesn't create wealth, only use it. They do have a payroll because it does take people, places and things to make everything move. They don't make cars, well now they do, planes, boats, shoes or anything else.
I know you are a lawyer but you dropped out so you're okay in my book. I'm a truck driver. I'm over regulated.
The DOT tells the trucking industries how trucks have to be built, loads secured and stuff that is their job. They then go on to tell me how many hours a day I can drive. How many hours I have to take off before I can drive again. But wait, there's more. They tell me how many hours I have to be in bed. They have the right to stop me and put me out of service because they think I'm tired. It doesn't matter if I've been driving 10 hours or 10 minutes. DOT thinks I tired, I go off duty no appeal I'm done for the next 10 hours.
Let's get extreme. Remember I live 300+ days a year in the truck with a bed, 2 seats, a couple cabinets and about 18 square feet of floor space. I have to not only record but graph when I start, end, fuel, but I also tell them when I stop to take a piss!
They used a check list, until a judge finally stopped it until they can have a hearing about it, where they judged how tied I was by answering such questions as how dirty is my cab. Do I have a TV and believe it or not how often I MASTURBATE! When is the last time you were stopped on the side of the road and asked how often you masturbate by a law enforcement officer?
Government has it's place. We just need them to go back to what they were created to do and get out of our life.
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"Just force insurance companies to take them on some sort of rotation schedule or other fair plan. Set up the standards for a “forced plan” so there will be a minimum that everybody will have. If you want a program where the government pays part or all of the premiums based on need, I would be okay with that. What I didn't say is that there is a plan the government runs like the proposed public option."
After reading Patrick Hahn's comments about how he doesn't WANT to get a job with benefits although he could do so.... AND thinking about what advice I would give to my children (which is, "get a freaking job with benefits, forget following your bliss") I have to consider this suggestion as reasonable.
What do you all think?
denese
1. i lived for several years in a country (UK) with public health care. here's the thing. public health care in the UK can be and was supplemented by private health care if you wish (i also had private because my fiance was a bit of a ponce). private health care got you the exclusive hospitals and amazingly attentive nurses. public health care makes sure no one went without. my fiance's grandmother broke her arm on christmas eve when she tripped. she didn't have private and public not only fixed her up immediately on a very busy ER night, but sent a nurse to her house four days a week until she was recovered. my grandmother doesn't have anywhere near that level of care here in the states and if anything happened to her it would be a tremendous burden on her fixed income and her family members as she insists on living alone. suggestions?
2. i have chronic medical conditions and was laid off in late april. i can't afford to COBRA even though i have the mandatory six months in the bank as i need to make sure my child needs to eat and the cost of one month of COBRA equals our monthly living expenses. suggestions?
3. the insurance companies aren't the only corporations that benefit from the current situation. without the threat of losing healthcare if they leave their jobs, how many people would stay in impossible work situations? Can you imagine if your healthcare wasn't tied to your employment? would you stay with a company that treated their people badly? what would companies have to do to retain their workers then? suggestions?
(denese - it's a comment graveyard out there tonight my latest post is over there turning in the winds of solitude - you have friends, it's just that no one seems to be on! hey, in BR next week and currently going insane with the packing)
California has high-risk insurance and it's prohibitively expensive. For people with no jobs or low-paid jobs, any insurance that they would have to pay for is out of the question. What the conservatives are missing is, we all pay anyway. Going back to a point that I don't see being made very often now, if you don't have insurance, you will not go to a doctor until you're carried into the emergency room. That costs more and has worse outcomes.
As to Catnlion's point about lawyers, that's simply not true. Insurance companies have been very bad money managers for the last 10 years. Insurance costs started going up when the tech bubble burst and the Nasdaq took a plunge from which it never recovered. Insurance companies had bet the farm on that burst of speculation, and they were skinned. I'm sure that many of them, not just AIG, later held mortgage backed securities. They are playing in the financial markets with your premiums, and when they lose big, they crank up the propaganda machine about lawyers and medical malpractice.
The truth is, lawyers cherry-pick their cases; unless the harm is grievous and the case open and shut, lawyers turn the case down. The awards to those harmed by incompetent doctors, who are very lightly supervised by their associations, are made by ordinary people who serve on juries.
The problem of malpractice suits could be easily solved by improved oversight. One thing that insurance companies and medicare are doing that could help is to refuse to pay for medical treatment when the need for it arose from medical errors. Wow, instant cost savings, not to mention incentives for greater care. Now, it needs to be made illegal for the provider to try to come after the patient who got hurt.
I just ranted about one little point in this debate. It's hard to boil down the proposed health plan to a few talking points, though the extreme right has no trouble making up points. Maybe it's easier to lie.
I heard an insurance lobbyist on CNBC claim that they only have a profit margin of 1%, yet insurance company profits have gone up by 500% since the year 2000. I'm still your friend, Denese.
"Government has it's place. We just need them to go back to what they were created to do and get out of our life."
He's apparently a believer in what, as far as I'm concerned, is one of the biggest lies foisted off on us by that liar extraordinaire Ronald Reagan. The lie goes like this:
"Government isn't the solution; government is the problem."
Yeah, right, government's the problem when you're discussing those parts of it you don't like, but when you're talking about the host of things the private sector CAN'T do better than government (or at all), or at all, well, not so much. Here's something from a post by Ariana Paz which is a wicked indictment of that position. I wouldn't use it here but it's something she found online, so I doubt if she'll mind:
"This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility.
After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration.
I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.
At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issed by the federal reserve bank.
On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.
After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right."
Denese, why Patrick doesn't want health care I don't understand either. Why wouldn't my daughter-in-law pay for her insurance?
I wonder if people remember the health benefits got to be the norm after the government tried to control wages. So businesses, needing to find a way to attract quality people they couldn't pay in cash, started offering health benefits.
bahHMM blog,
Trivia question for you. The Indian Railroad system is the largest employer in the world. The Chinese army is number 2. Who is number 3?
I'm glad your mother got fixed up. I don't know that I have ever been able to afford a COBRA plan. Another unintended problem from a government good idea. COBRA is a good idea but......
So if you have the standard government plan, then they can mandate the cost of it as well as the coverage levels. When you got laid off and your agreed coverage time at work was done, you could go right to the assigned risk pool. No being turned down here.
Golden handcuffs, what a novel idea. Businesses are always looking for way to make sure their good employees stay.
BTW, the 3rd larges employer in the world is the UK medical system. They are also complaining that they need more employees.
JK Brady,
I stop when I can. Because hijacking is a large problem sometimes I can, but my cell phone works and I call 911 and get an officer to the scene.
What you call greed, I call profit. Without the chance of profit, you would not have a job. Nobody is going to start a business, and hire you, if they don't think they can make money at it.
Mr. Mustard,
You want what we all want. We just need to come together with "common sense discourse" to find the best workable solution.
If you are a retired state employee I'm going to guess that you were paying taxes when JFK was president. He lowered the top rate from 90% to 70%. How much extra work would you do if you got to keep 10 cents per dollar. People now complain about working over time because it puts them "in a higher tax bracket".
I hope your child is okay. With a 6mm tab there is no way out. Please don't take this personally but you are the best comment to ask the question to. With 300 million people in the US what percentage is acceptable to slip through the cracks? I don't think we can do anything that will make sure 100% are taken care of. There will be a failure point someplace.
Sirenita Lake,
When a grocery store wants to make money they buy at one price and sell at another. Insurance companies don't. They take in money and invest it and their profits come from the investments. It's not totally charge more than they pay out, even though that is part of it.
So when the tech bubble burst their rates had to go up. They lost one of their main profit centers. I don't know how bad their money manager was but remember NYC almost went BK. CA is almost there is they can't pull one out of their butt. What happened to Orange county when their money manager got into derivitives.
If malpractice insurance and malpractice costs are not a problem then where did Senator Edwards make his millions? I hate to say it but before my step-brothers father, a doctor, died he went bare. He just couldn't afford the insurance payments.
Myrid,
Under my suggestion, you avoid the cost of another government run program. The overhead for this bill has to be extreme.
I don't want my taxes to go back to the 90% range. I do believe that people might not be able to pay 100% of an insurance cost even if the coverage is mandated and the cost fixed. That is why I said I wouldn't have a problem where all or part of it was paid for by the government. I have to do a means test every year at the VA.
Michael Rogers,
I understand very long days. Sleep on it and think about it then let us know what you come up with. It is this kind of debate that will bring everybody together with a solution we can all live with. We will never have a plan that will make everybody happy. We all know that. We just have to have one that works for the vast majority.
For those who just hate, admit they hate, and just want to attack people just because they don't drink the same Kool Aid you drink, go join the KKK or something. That way your hate will be spread someplace where it is welcome and understood.
What are the first 4 words you quoted me as saying?
You are right about a lot of things and wrong about others. When government knows it's place and stays there we will all be better off.
But what is their place? I don't know how to answer that one. I do know that I just got a birthday card from my grandson. My birthday is in Feb. My daughter mailed it in time. I wonder where it went?
So what do you do when the government starts over reaching? Tell me one good reason why a law enforcement officer can stop me, question me, and ask me how often I masturbate? What would you do if it was you that got stopped and a cop asked you that question? Please answer that one, the perv in me wants to know.
BTW, you also forgot fight wars, control the air space we fly in, lock up crooks, audit people like Medoff.
"If you are a retired state employee I'm going to guess that you were paying taxes when JFK was president."
I was 9 years old when he died.
You are right. The job of any business is to return as much as possible to the share holders. There are some business ethics but they don't change the job, just how they are allowed to get it.
On the other hand, government is big, blotted, and slow. Their main job is defense.
So why not let government just buy what they want. They want you to have an insurance program. Business is in the insurance business. Why should government get in business with them, just buy from them. If you need to stream line a program you can't do that being blotted.
Let Congress make the rules, and write the checks. Let business make the profit. Instead of having one government plan, you could have several. How about letting each state's Blue Cross Blue Shield do the insurance work. Maybe Harold and Nana Health and Life Insurance company. We can figure out how to make money from the government rules.
How about giving the states a kick back and let their welfare departments do the qualifications to determine what you pay based on need. You may pay 25% of the cost and I pay 90%. Again, why duplicate a department that already exists and knows their locals?
The truth is that government does some things better than private industry, particularly when those they are ESSENTIAL services that should not be only profit oriented. For God's sake, open your eyes and look at how countries do things. We are not all stupid, running out of money or on the road to anarchy. Sometimes government is better, and sometimes private is better. It sure isn't an either/or situation except for people who I am sorry to say, are woefully ignorant of how things really work when you look at facts instead of propaganda.
Just the misinformation campaign they are conducting through PR firms disguised as grassroots organizations should be enough to at least be an eye opener to their true motives. They have taken their lead from the same people that brought you the collapse of Wall Street. Maximum profit regardless of the cost to those they are supposed to be protecting. Both groups have sent millions of average Americans to bunkruptcy (NOT a typo, bunkruptcy is when you buy into their bunk and suffer because of it) and homelessness.
People are dying every day due to decisions made by insurance executives. 14,000 people lose their health care coverage everyday.
Between 2000 and 2007 HC insurance profits grew by 428%, does that sound even possible?
They managed that by cherry picking those clients that were healthy and refusing lifesaving care or dropping coverage for those when they needed it the most knowing that no other company would pick them up due to preexisting conditions. Medical expenses are tied to up to 70% of bankruptcies. Premiums for many are now nearly equal to their mortgage payments. All the while, CEO pay has skyrocketed for the ten largest insurance companies to an average of nearly $12 million per years plus stock options. (coincidentally this all happened during the Bush years).
Obama wants to roll back the Bush tax cuts and and tax incomes for those making over $250,000 per year to help pay for reform. It's only the money over $250,000 that will be taxed, not the first $250,000 and then only 2% of that income. I have no sympathy for anyone in that tax bracket and neither should you.
Is that fair? I don't know, but I CAN tell you why I don't have a problem with it. 42% of my property taxes go to pay for schools and education. I don't have any children, so why should I pay?
I pay because it is not only the right thing to do, but because it's for the betterment of all. What if they taxed people for the number of children you had rather than a blanket property tax policy? Wouldn't that be more fair? Probably, but I don't see how that could work.
Something has to change and it has to change drastically. We pay twice what any other country pays in health care and our longevity and infant mortality rates are scraping the bottom of the lists in both categories.
I'm with Nantehay, it's time to give the government a chance to set this ship straight. I don't think reeling in the insurance companies will have any long term effect on health care. They have way to many high dollar lawyers that will find creative ways to bypass any laws that Congress will pass.
A public option will help to keep them honest by forcing them to compete with the government rather than only each other.
I don't see any other way to insure the 50 million uninsured and the countless numbers of under insured. Big insurance has no intentions to do it. They've been working in the opposite direction for decades. In 2000 their payout was around 95%. By 2007 that had dropped to around 80%. They are paying out less and keeping more than ever before.
denese
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