Today President Obama will hold a health care summit at the White House. This will be the first of many meetings to try and formulate a bi-partisan policy for Universal Healthcare. Two questions being discussed are:
How much will universal healthcare cost?
A HEALTHY DEBATE: Healthcare Reform - it's long but worth the look.
The federal government does many things to reduce our risk and promote health. It regulates the safety of cars, enforce standards to make our workplaces safer and set limits on exposure to toxic chemicals. Fewer fatal car crashes and healthier work and home environments allow people to live longer and healthier lives. We need to think about the benefits of universal health care in the same way.
Not every dollar spent on extending health care to all would be new spending. The government already spends an average of about $100 billion annually on health care for people who are without health insurance for all or part of a year. About a third of this spending comes out of the pockets of people who lack, or recently lost, their health insurance. Another $5 billion is contributed by physicians through charity care. Most of the money comes from federal, state and local governments to support hospitals, community health centers and other healthcare providers who treat people who do not have health insurance.
Finding a politically bi-partisan path to universal coverage will not be easy. The political process of identifying a package of benefits and how it would be administered will be difficult. Determining how best to spread these costs among businesses, healthcare providers, taxpayers and health care consumers will be tougher still. Nevertheless, it will be worth it.
So, let’s start a debate on universal healthcare and see if President Obama and his administration can get it done this year or by the end of his first term in office. How would you vote?
Should America have Universal Healthcare?
No VS Yes
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Douglas Moran
Smithery
Patie
Love Grandma
Rolling
Alan Nothnagle
Salon.com
Comments
As I've posted before, my wife and I pay three times the premiums for much less coverage than a mere ten years ago. Three hundred percent increase for less is staggering. The current health woes I face right now leaves me having to research my insurance to try and "beat the system" which with such high deductibles can lead a family on the brink over the edge. I speak from experience.
I don't know if it's a "right", but it's a "necessity".
I hope this helps get things started. Yes, it's going to be expensive, but two wars have been super expensive and what has it accomplished? Has it saved American lives? No and anyone who thinks it has is naive in my opinion.
Thanks my friend. Rated
I just hope it gets debated for the merits and not side-tracked by Harry & Louise this time.
Everyone should have health insurance, that's for sure and it should be affordable. Will the medical community like this? Probably not.
On the whole, I would say yes but, there are a lot of questions.
I also question those with a conservative leaning that are staunch believers in the pro-life agenda but find universal health care prohibitive.
I think the most important questions is, "How do we make this feasible?"
The only people who have to pay the full price are the self employed, those who have no insurance (hospitals charge the full rate not the discount rate they charge insurance companies) for people who pay for their own medical treatments. If you work for a company that does not offer benefits you have to pay for your healthcare.
The problem is a single policy cost more than most can afford. Since the insurance companies cherry pick the individual policies you will be rejected if you have had any medical procedures done in the last 5 years. If you have or have had HBP in the last 5 years you will be rejected. If you are over 50 good luck finding a company that will insure you since the insurance companies know that 80% of the claims are for people over 50 so if you have insurance now, expect your premiums to rise once you turn 50 to the point you cannot afford it anymore.
This is where the reform needs to happen.
I've had long waits here to get care just as in Canada, but then I have to pay ridiculous amounts of money. I had a child in the hospital, with good health care, and am still paying off the $8000 bill. I have to fight with the insurance company over almost every charge. I pay $300 a month in premiums, have a $2500 deductible, and still they will find ways not to cover things. They can retroactively decide not to cover something that they've already paid. Then, I get a bill. A big bill.
It is time for something else, damn it. It makes me laugh, in a very sarcastic, cynical way when someone talks about raising taxes to pay for it and gets upset about that. Unless they had me paying an extra 20,000 dollars a YEAR, it wouldn't get anywhere near what I've had to pay in health services in the last year. Seriously. And it's not gonna be that.
If you pay $3000 in premiums a year, plus $2500 in a deductible ($5000 for the Kid and me), and have to pay for things they just suddenly won't cover, plus a $7500 maximum that is really much more than that, etc. etc. you'd happily pay those taxes. Not to mention the evil that occurs when you get anything that they consider a 'chronic' illness. I had a friend who couldn't get coverage because she had, wait for it, ALLERGIES. Seriously.
No more of this. No more.
Thanks Puchi PooPoo - I think that universal healthcare for primary and preventive care is a major part of President Obama's plan. It sure would help with long term cost.
Or rather, and... we need to be clear that what is being discussed is including everyone in a risk pool for coverage of medical treatments, which is part of, but not the same thing as health care.
Medical treatment consists primarily of doctors ordering diagnostic tests, prescribing prescription drugs or referring patients to specialists for invasive surgical procedures. All of these things are expensive and profit-driven.
Health care encompasses, among other things, improved nutrition, reduction of environmental toxins (including most prescription drugs) and stress management techniques, none of which are covered by "health insurance". Improving the nation's health may well be more dependent on policies enacted via the Farm Bill and agencies like the EPA than those of the CDC and FDA.
What weird world we live in.
Nancy N - thanks. You make a great point about the right kind of insurance - it is usually to little with a huge deductible.
odetteroulette - you are so right about the high cost and little coverage - it is bankrupting too many families!
It's a crime we don't have it and we're spending trillions on banks, corporations, etc.
My doctor recently said most doctors in fact want it. They are fed up with all the garbage, paper work, insurance rules, etc. Every year it eats into their time.
I wish every doctor/hospital show would do this: when they show a patient, their should be a scroll across the bottom of the TV that tells viewers how much that procedure cost. No one ever talks about money on these shows. It would go a long way to outrage people into action.
Your story is similar to so many throughout this country and more are joining the ranks daily.
Lets press our Congressmen & Senators to get behind this necessary issue and get comprehensive legislation written and signed into law!
I've had some experience with medical care in the U.S., personally and in dealing with catastrophic illness in my family. I've also had some experience with medical care in Germany, again personally and again in dealing with issues (non-catastrophic, but involving surgery) in my family. In the end, I trust the German system more.
In the U.S. we have these strange public health care debates that seem to be driven mainly by anecdote and ideology. The quantitative comparisons I've seen make me believe that health care in the U.S. could be improved if we moved to a European model. But I suspect that these aren't acceptable to some loud public voices because it would be "socialism" or "intrusive government" or "limiting freedom". I'm a pragmatist in this area: I don't care; it works elsewhere, and I think it can work here. I could be convinced otherwise, but I simply haven't been.
We are, in no way going to have success with universal health care when we have about 30 million illegal immigrants from all over the planet who are NOT always the hard working people who do jobs that...yadda yadda...the media keeps lying to us about.
And the costs of drug abuse are horrendous. What kind of "universal" care are we going to provide there? Round after round of Rehab? Maintenance? If drug users paid for their care instead of drugs, you would see such moneeeee.....
Come to sunny Californa, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas...and check out what complete neglect of our borders, and a flourishing illegal drug industry have contributed to our medical meltdown.
And our medical philosophies do NOT support using only acute and emergency care as the sole medical care. We need to have a serious preventive component in place, or we will not have successful "universal" health care. People will just get to the point of acute sickness that could have been prevented. And that level of illness is far more costly.
So, the first thing that we need to define: What's "Universal"?
Second: I have issues with the costs of providing medicine. Doctors need some relief from the overwhelming costs of malpractice insurance. Those who got through school on financial aid start out in overwhelming debt. And they have to get continuing education.
So: A cap on malpractice awards and costs? More tax and debt relief if the doctor works in public service? Is that out of the question?
Finally: Why is the Minority Right so rabid about universal health care? I can't get a coherent answer.
YES!!!!!
This isn't just about those of us who don't have medical insurance.
It's also about those who have to pay enormous premiums for insurance which doesn't quite get the urge to pay for medical necessities.
It is about companies which are folding due to the fact that they cannot afford to cover their employees.
It's about medical costs being the #1 reason for personal bankruptcy in this country.
It's about those of us who have had their credit wrecked due to medical - which means higher interest rates, higher mortgage payments (often with predatory lenders), often higher rent payments (from those places which don't check credit and charge higher rent as they know they are getting people who couldn't live any of the places which require a credit check).
It's about those people who lose their jobs due to illness when they cannot afford medical treatments, then lose their homes, cars and families because they are no longer working.
We spend more money on medical costs than any other country in the world yet we rank lower than any other country in the industrialized world - and lower than a few 3rd world countries as well. People who think we can't "afford" national health care need a few courses in logic. We can't "afford" NOT to have national health care.
I'm driving on socialized roads. We're fighting wars with a socialized military. When I've called 911 I didn't have to give my credit card in order for an officer to arrive. When fires broke out in the mountains by where I was living in Colorado, we didn't have to hold a bake sale to get firefighters to come put out those fires. My parents have social security, which is about all they have after my father's pension got canceled and the company he worked for went under. (My father's 95 now. I guess he could try to go back to work...... )
Why do we then go retarded when we talk about the government funding healthcare the same way it does all of these other things?
As to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, these are nothing more than quaint palliatives when one can't afford their child's doctor bills or Chase has kicked the interest rate up to 31% on the credit card because the choice between mortgage payment or credit card payment is a tough one.