It is just another disaster adding to tax burden and nightmare .and it imposes at least one regulation. Deregulate some markets and you would see high risk pools pop up all over. Get rid of individual state mandates -your insurance can follow you. Flat tax. Now youll have more money in your pocket. Litigation reform. Cap damages in hospital and foctor malpractice cases. The american standard won 't embrace these ideas because it takes influence away from yhe beltway and feds.
Yes, its pretty much a non-fix as it does nothing to address the price inflation in medical care. Used to be that if your kid needed a tonsillectomy you could afford to pay cash for the procedure and hospital stay. The same work now would be crazy to try to pay cash for out of pocket. Now, as much as I would like to just do away with health insurance and force the medical industrial complex to have to compete for our dollars. I probably will not get what I want. So, how can we reduce the cost of care? First, the billing department mess needs to go. Huge piles of money are spent on managing different billing codes for different insurers. There is no reason why if the auto industry was able to manage war materials, parts and labor with EDI that something similar to EDI could not be used to make something as simple as billing less of a mess. This would also make cross state line competition between insurance providers more easy, and more possible. Also, standardizing the billing codes would make it way easier to generate cost statistics across time and locations. That would make it easier for the insurance industry to pull the breaks on increasing costs.
I have often wondered why doctors don't offer one price for insurance and another for cash. When I was young and had no insurance I went to an eye/ear specialist. His office visit at that time was 47.00. I said I was paying cash and he charged me 27.00. With the cost of processing forms out of site why not ask people to pay cash for the simple stuff?
A number of years ago I went into the emergency room with abdominal pains. They found I had a gall stone. The hospital was going to charge me $12,000 for their part of the operation, but when they learned I didn't have insurance, the price dropped to $5,000.
Ah, but the free market isn't "fair." Meaning that there are winners and losers. To the progressives, there can only be losers (excepting, of course, themselves and their fellow rulers - they, of course, deserve better because they care for all the rest of us).
I really like this idea. I don't get the woman from the family advocate group. Are people at risk? What about the poor? Driving costs down helps everyone.
Want to interject a little political realism here. All of the alternate proposals are excellent. There is just one problem. It is called the FILIBUSTER. Unless the Republicans take the senate over with 60 members, there is no chance that the Democrats will allow any revision of the bill to pass. No revision, no defunding, no repeal will ever pass the senate unless the Republicans abrogate the Filibuster completely. I don't recommend this course of action even if Majority Leader? Reid does. The 60 vote requirement is not impossible to reach, it just seems very, very unlikely. So without one of those two events happening, ObamaCare is here to stay. Think about that when it comes time to vote and put in Senators that will vote to repeal the ACA. Then all we have to do is make sure that Hillary or some other Progressive doesn’t get in in 2016.
Maybe the Republicans will pull a page from Lincoln's book. Just eject the legislators that disagree and not let them vote for 30 or 40 years. Then pretend they saved the union and made everyone free. F%^*ing politicians.
"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament." Vladimir Lenin
It's all about control and getting people into the system. I would like to have a major medical policy for major illnesses and pay the rest out of pocket.
I think the US got out of control when HMOs came out. The concept of paying a fraction of the cost for something changed marketplace supply and demand. People were out of touch with real costs and small business owners were bearing much of the brunt of the true cost of the procedure or drug plus some. So in prescription drugs you had HMO huge demand and individual limited demand. It will eventually tighten supply which also drives up cost. Paying $5 for a prescription robs from those who pay an inflated price to make up the difference in cost. We have always paid cash for scrips. At times even the phatmacist is shocked at that price compared to what insured are paying.
I don't like a flat fee for prescriptions. It should be done on a percentage basis if at all. That way competition will help keep costs down. If I am paying 10.00 no matter where I go then I'll just go where it is convenient.
The good reason: actual insurance against rare but expensive (sometimes lifesaving) treatments (just like homeowners insurance).
The bad reason: bureaucratic overhead, prohibitions on new providers entering the market and the like have jacked up the price of a $10 service to $100, but 'insurance' will pay $90. If you don't have insurance you get stuck paying $100, but maybe they'll cut a deal and only charge you $30-$50.
The 60 vote requirement is not impossible to reach, it just seems very, very unlikely. So without one of those two events happening, ObamaCare is here to stay. Think about that when it comes time to vote and put in Senators that will vote to repeal the ACA. Then all we have to do is make sure that Hillary or some other Progressive doesn’t get in in 2016.
It's the only acceptable alternative, to me. Anything that requires me to buy anything just because I'm alive and a citizen is unacceptable.
"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament."
Vladimir Lenin
came out. The concept of paying a fraction of the cost for something changed marketplace supply and demand. People were out of touch with real costs and small business owners were bearing much of the brunt of the true cost of the procedure or drug plus some. So in prescription drugs you had HMO huge demand and individual limited demand. It will eventually tighten supply which also drives up cost. Paying $5 for a prescription robs from those who pay an inflated price to make up the difference in cost. We have always paid cash for scrips. At times even the phatmacist is shocked at that price compared to what insured are paying.
The good reason: actual insurance against rare but expensive (sometimes lifesaving) treatments (just like homeowners insurance).
The bad reason: bureaucratic overhead, prohibitions on new providers entering the market and the like have jacked up the price of a $10 service to $100, but 'insurance' will pay $90. If you don't have insurance you get stuck paying $100, but maybe they'll cut a deal and only charge you $30-$50.