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Seen the new Bob and Betty ads all over TV right now?
New name, same game...Obama = Clinton
If we allow Obama to continue to violate anyone else's human rights, we should not be expecting to win a battle over ours. Their violations are much more severe in terms of survival and lack of quality in their life (living in prison forever without being found guilty).
I can't wait until the Blue Dogs fuck this up.
Where is my vote?
I voted for change, not same.
I voted for Obama-Biden 1, not Bush-Cheney 3.
I voted for policy in the public, not corporate interest.
I voted for health care reform, not more corporate welfare.
Where is my vote?
Are there going to be any tax breaks, anything to help us suddenly find an extra fifty-thousand a year laying around to pay for that insurance?
Thanks a lot Obama. I think you just made a Republican out of me. Someone get me a rifle and a copy of Atlas Shrugged.
(And less if they're part-time, apparently.)
Yes, I think it would be better if everyone could simply sign onto the public option -- but that's the sticking point for a good portion of the corporatist Dems, apparently.
So thank Ben Nelson and the rest of the Blue Dogs for that, if you're thanking anyone.
If this public option ever passes, anyone that wants it can go on it. The reality is that only the poor and unemployed will go on it and those that can afford it will keep their private insurance - I know I will. So if it's filled with poor and unemployed, employers won't be paying for it - so who will be? Taxpayers - with more taxes.
I have looked at the VA as a business model and since 2001 the VA has been my primary care provider.
America’s Veteran Administration is the largest, lowest cost; best outcome producing at any cost, health care delivery system in the US, it uses the world’s best medical software, and it has been controlling the problems with access, cost, quality, and malpractice successfully for years.
This article, (The Best Care Anywhere by Phillip Longman)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/...
documents how the VA was transformed by Dr. Kizer, into a system that is producing the highest quality health care in the country.
The reason that it is necessary for the government to fund, own, and operate its own facilities has been demonstrated by bad circumstances that millions of Americans have endured with private insurance and care, as you pointed out;
“( We have a division that is a Medicaid provider/administration. They used to get 50-100 new applications a month. With the economy in the toilet we now get 500 a month. Had lunch with one of them this week. Know what all those folks are doing? All the elective surgeries that their private insurance wouldn't pay for, or had a deductible for - are now scheduling them. Doesn't cost them a cent. They also use EMS and ER's like taxi's and hotels. Got a belly ache - call an ambo. Guess who's paying for them? You and me - the medicaid system is already drowning, adding millions more will collapse it - no matter how O plans to fund it.)”
A civilian system with its own funding staffed by people like you is how we can care for people to produce the best outcomes in a cost effective manner which will be morally responsible and fiscally sound.
I wasn't commenting on bad treatment by people by their insurance companies - tho I agree sometimes that happens. What I commented on is that people totally abuse the services and run up millions in costs when it's free and gov't provided. Add millions of people to that system and everything will collapse. Bottom line - if it's free or close to it - people abuse it.
We - and MOST hospitals - practice medicine in a morally responsible manner. We don't turn away people because they can't pay - we treat anyway. I'm an analyst - my company is a more than $3 billion dollar company - one of the biggest employers in the region - 26,000 employees - and my job - my sole job - is to find them ways to make more money so that we can afford to stay in business to take care of the people who can't afford to pay. And I guarantee you if EMTALA didn't force us to 'treat' the system abusers and illegals, we'd be treating and taking care of a whole lot more of them.
The critical factor is to have the most advantageous platform to operate from and then to strive for excellence constantly and consistently.
Preventing abuse of free care will be difficult and the judgment calls will be a constant point of contention within the system as those calls within the private sector are now but they won’t bankrupt people with public care.
Now for people purchasing insurance, which in itself is difficult for many, it is a crushing tragedy when bills keep coming because insurance weasel clauses kick in and the patients and their families are bankrupted after doing their best all their lives.
Horrific damage is being done to individuals and businesses now just trying to cope with insurance and health care requirements and the front running proposal for reform that will require the forced purchase of questionable insurance to pay for expensive services in a system that has failed so many is lunacy and if speculation is true that some legislators are receiving payoffs to vote for this it is criminal.
Nobody can collect the money to pay for health care as cheaply as the government can through a national sales tax and nobody can deliver high quality care and medications as cost effectively as the VA has for years.
A civilian model of this is the best fix in a new dual public/private system.
If private works keep it.
For everybody else, for our physical and financial health we need the change, and freeing individuals and businesses from this burden will provide the greatest stimulus ever for our economy today and forever.
Preventing abuse of care isn't difficult and a point of contention, it's plain ILLEGAL - EMTALA has made is so - or many of these abusers would be turned away from the ER, but they can't be.
There is much controversy over just how many bankruptcies are because of medical bills or not - studies come to different conclusions. Of course those in favor of a public plan only use the ones that suit their purposes. I researched it about 18 months ago - and found that very few bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. As a matter of fact, a cursory look today at the sob stories reported and most were living high above their means - massive credit card debt, big mortgages - things that if they didn't have, they could pay their bills. I once lost my insurance and got very sick, had a $5,000 medical debt. The hospital contacted me and offered me a host of ways to pay for it - charity care, grants, etc. I opted to pay for it myself over time.
I completely disagree with your belief that the gov't can do a great job with this 'program' - they've made a disaster of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security - along with most other things they do - I have no belief it will suddenly change for this one.
This plan will not free individuals or businesses. A good portion of the people without insurance are young healthy people - under the new proposed plan, they will be heavily fined if they do not accept the forced gov't plan. And as for businesses. One person here mentioned his family's 60 person business - where now they will have to come up with $750 per person a year, that's $45,000 that they didn't have to in gov't 'fees' before. What do you think they'll do? They'll let people go before they'll pay that because they can't afford it. Then we'll have more people on the gov't dole - neither they nor their employers will be footing the cost - we will.
$750/year is miniscule compared to the employer cost of health insurance. The fee could be higher than that and still save employers a good deal. And the proceeds should be put toward the cost of the public option.
That said, I do not believe that employers should be responsible for health care in the US. It adds to the cost of goods and services, and thus we all pay for employer-sponsored health care just as if we were paying for it through taxes. Why can't people see and understand this? It's really a no-brainer.
A dual public/private choice health care reform system in which all government funded programs would be distributed through government hospitals and clinics could control costs and outcomes to save hundreds of billions of dollars annually from the $2.5trillion now spent, and no one would be left without care, nor would seniors, Medicare and Medicaid recipients suffer from the Presidents proposals to cut $600billion in spending over the next ten years in order to pay for his convoluted forced insurance health care plan.
It is not a level playing field with government competing against private insurance and for profit care providers for patients, nor should it be.
Health care reform serving individuals, businesses, taxpayers and the national economy should be the beneficiaries of this home court advantage.
In the public sales tax funded plan:
Every individual who wants free public care and medications should have it period.
Every business one truck plumber or General Motors who selects public care for their employees should have no obligations financial or otherwise to be involved in health care.
Private health care's roll in public/private reform should be to attract every client they can who would find their services so compelling that patients would pay good money to use them rather than take free public care.
Private systems would be rid of indigent care or any other loss producing government imposed mandates.
A dual public/private health care reform system has no equals or even a close contender to provide a world class solution for reform.
It is time for the President, Legislators, American businesses, unions, AARP, churches, banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and private health care companies to become pragmatic and do a true fix for the sake of producing healthy citizens and a robust economy.
The whole idea of controlling costs with gov't healthcare is a pipe dream. I work in non-profit healthcare - get it - NON Profit - no shareholders, no profits, anything we make gets plowed back into healthcare. In FY07 we gave away $232 million in charity care of folks that couldn't pay their bill.
We have a division that is a Medicaid provider/administration. They used to get 50-100 new applications a month. With the economy in the toilet we now get 500 a month. Had lunch with one of them this week. Know what all those folks are doing? All the elective surgeries that their private insurance wouldn't pay for, or had a deductible for - are now scheduling them. Doesn't cost them a cent. They also use EMS and ER's like taxi's and hotels. Got a belly ache - call an ambo. Guess who's paying for them? You and me - the medicaid system is already drowning, adding millions more will collapse it - no matter how O plans to fund it.