Healthcare

Posted by coaldigger 5 years, 5 months ago to Ask the Gulch
31 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

What would happen is the President and the leaders of Congress, should they wish to participate, met with CEO's of all major healthcare companies and challenged them to present a plan for free market health insurance? If the deal was for government to completely withdraw from the market, what would happen? Would they want Medicare and the revenue stream provided into this fund and presently collected by government? Would they be able to spread their risks so that pre-existing conditions would have little or no impact? Would the elimination of regulations provide better healthcare? Life insurance exists despite the pre-existing condition that we are all going to die. If the free market could increase their profits by funding research to cure deadly disease, would they have the long range view to do so?

I don't know enough about insurance, healthcare, etc. to provide any answers but I suspect every living person cares about his/her own life and given the freedom to do so would seek the best possible situation to sustain it. With the profit incentive and self preservation unleashed, I suspect there is an answer and that only idiots that want power over everyone, stand between it and a solution.


Add Comment

FORMATTING HELP

All Comments Hide marked as read Mark all as read

  • Posted by $ Abaco 5 years, 5 months ago
    Lots of questions there. The current medical system lives on medicare payment...called CMS funding. They'd want that revenue stream. The more the government is involved, the more expensive it gets. Then, as is the case here in California, they pass laws that mandate medical treatments and put their fingers into people's lives where 1- they shouldn't tread, and 2- they are going off of incorrect premises.

    As somebody who works in the industry - my advice is to not get sick or hurt. From pain killers to procedure wait lists...things are getting ugly and mismanaged. There is little incentive to do things right, and there are a lot of practitioners who don't have a clue what they are doing, yet they flourish in this current paradigm of government involvement...
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by freedomforall 5 years, 5 months ago
    Health insurance is not the same thing as health care.
    Health insurance in its current state does little but cause the cost of health care to increase geometrically.
    The biggest beneficiaries of the Un-Affordable Care Act are health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and government.
    The patients get nothing but higher costs for health care.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by Solver 5 years, 5 months ago
      There are those that are privileged to get a much lower cost, at the expense of the less privileged. These privileged ones will then be expected to vote Democrat because of their identity.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ blarman 5 years, 5 months ago
    If the government got out of health care entirely, it would require the following:
    1) rescinding laws requiring healthcare providers and hospitals to treat anyone entering their emergency rooms.
    2) rescinding laws requiring that healthcare insurers register with the individual States in which they seek customers
    3) repeal Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA. Also SS Disability.
    4) repeal HIPPA

    It would also mean that:
    1) Individuals would not be subsidized by taxpayers, and therefore would have to make better choices about their health and their healthcare
    2) Individuals would be free to purchase healthcare insurance or not, as they see fit

    What we would likely see:
    1) A la carte programs from insurers allowing individuals to select plans that better meet their needs without breaking their wallets covering inapplicable things (maternity for men, etc.)
    2) Innovation in insurance such as splitting it into basic maintenance care and catastrophic coverage such as for cancer.
    3) Doctors who actually competed based on price for their services.
    4) Patient information being controlled by patients and shared with doctors as appropriate
    5) Doctors spending more time with patients rather than on paperwork.
    6) Reform in medical malpractice, as doctors could refuse service to patients they deemed to be high-risk

    Is anything likely to happen short of a full-scale meltdown on the part of the Federal Government? Unfortunately no. Especially since the Democrats don't want to give up the power they've acquired by controlling peoples' lives.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by freedomforall 5 years, 5 months ago
      The real solution last successfully occurred in 1776.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by lrshultis 5 years, 5 months ago
        Would also, since medications are part of health care, mean the end of the FDA. Would something like Underwriters Lab spring up to replace it?
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
          I spent most of my career as an electrical engineer and in construction. I always found UL and Factory Mutual to be professional and the best arbitrators for product safety. There were government agencies also but they were always looking for payoffs.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by lrshultis 5 years, 5 months ago
            Those arbitrations would most likely be after the fact of exstream side effects with illnesses and deaths. Even with the long process to introduce a new drug, there are always side effects at least for some. I use amiodarone to fix my 45% PVCs. Works fine but was first placed on the market until very severe side effects showed up, so taken off the market. Then years later, was introduced again to stop deaths from life threatening arrhythmia. So needs great care in use. Now that is with strict testing and of course a great cost. Since a free market in the drug usage would operate as does the supplement industry where people are harmed as they were harmed before the FDA and in few cases is there redress in law for harm, all I see is another kind of harm in a free market for drugs. Law of course being force.
            I almost became an electrical engineer but due to exstream social anxiety I chose chemistry and math because the electrical engineer course had a speech course and chemistry had a senior seminar where just one speech was required. Then because the government pestered me with there registration program for chemists, I went into the lawn care business where I had four months (winter here in southern WI starts the last part of November and cleanups, grass mowing, plantings,etc.in March) a year to work on some old math conjectures.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by term2 5 years, 5 months ago
    Insurance companies and healthcare providers want forced participation, unlimited abilty to charge premiums and service fees, with the money paid for by government. Its crooked as the day is long, and Obama knew this and suckered them in to get Obamacare passed. Obama knew the plans would not work, and eventually it would be medicaid for everyone (not medicare..) with the end of the insurance companies.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by BCRinFremont 5 years, 5 months ago
    In the imperfect world in which we live, there is no perfect or free solution to anything. Madness ensues in such pursuits and the resources required to get closer to the goal of perfection approach infinity. F
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 5 years, 5 months ago
    In the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" there quote that where the guide says:

    “This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

    Any attempt to solve Healthcare problem by moving the little green pieces of paper around is doomed to failure. It isn't healthcare financing that needs to be solved it is healthcare itself. As long as Healthcare is costing almost 20% of GDP there is no way it will be "affordable" no matter who is writing the checks.

    The healthcare industry is highly regulated and is pretty much locked into the "Doctor with the black bag" paradigm. Everything has to go through the physician. We need to look at other ways of caring for people, especially those with chronic diseases. Obviously if you have a Trauma you need immediate medical care, but what about type II diabetes?

    Technology is the solution. In the future, your primary care physician will be software based and essentially free.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by term2 5 years, 5 months ago
      It started with the monopolization of the healthcare provider into the licensed physician.

      They got the power to make us need 'prescriptions' in order to get any drugs. And any drugs had to be approved by FDA before sale.

      Then it took over medical devices so we needed prescriptions for them and they all had to be pre approved by the FDA

      Then they forced us all to have some sort of insurance, whether it be employer based, obamacare, or medicaid.

      Now they are trying to regulare nutritional supplements as they do regular prescription drugs. I am sure prescriptions will be required for those soon.

      All of it was designed to make us go to the "system" in order to get any healthcare at all.

      All I think that is needed is REPEAL of the Obamacare law, removal of the powers of the FDA to require their approval before sale (they can approve them if they want, but I could buy the unapproved ones anyway if I wanted), and removal of the monopoly of physicians. Then we could start to see better healthcare.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by freedomforall 5 years, 5 months ago
      Ban health insurance and the costs will plummet as only the people who are sick will be willing to pay and demand for services will drop by 80%.
      (Disclosure: Speculation unsupported by scientific study.)
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by minorwork 5 years, 5 months ago
    Doctor shortages end up with results similar to not being covered by insurance. Rationing inevitable by waiting or not having money to pay for service. The med schools limit applicants and so doctor shortages are guaranteed, as well they are going to be paid top dollar for their being a shortage. Else make veterinarians doctors too. Hell they have to learn the workings of more than one species and human docs only one.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by LibertyBelle 5 years, 5 months ago
    Demanding that insurance companies provide for pre-existing conditions makes no sense whatever. But when I worked for a certain restaurant chain, after a while, I got insurance, though I had not opted for it originally. Since I had been found to have epilepsy before I got the insurance, naturally the insurance would not cover it; except that the insurance had a rule that they would start covering it after I had paid into it for a certain length of time. (I think there had to be no seizures during that time). So that worked well enough. But that was a long time ago, and I believe that there was no one forcing them to do it.---Not that I knew about, anyway.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by chad 5 years, 5 months ago
    Close examination of the healthcare law will reveal that the intention is not to provide health care but to provide an income stream (taxation) into the government. The bureaucrats who try to make it function will prove that no matter what they do it will only become more complicated and inefficient and obscures the original design.
    There is a new 3% tax on all real estate sales to 'pay' for the ACA. There is a tax on all medical appliances. My premium went up 10 times and my deductible went up 100 times and the new rule that the deductible applies for every new instance (if your original healthcare provider recommends you to see a specialist the deductible starts over) it is unlikely that you will get the ACA to pay for much of any procedure.
    If you have a pre-existing condition no employer will give you more than 29 hours per week nor more than 1400 hours per year to avoid having to pay for your premium which means you will have to work at least two jobs to pay for being seriously ill while you try to recover.
    Dishonest market insurance companies would love this income stream with the corresponding failure to pay scheme.
    The assumption here is also that without insurance no one could afford healthcare which reminds me of the case of a doctor in Sacramento that refused to use the state funds and insurance and was able to drop his prices by 90% and still made more income. Even poor people could afford his services. His fellow doctors complained and to avoid having his license revoked (which would mean no income) he was forced by the state back into the socialist system and his prices rose accordingly.
    There would be market insurance that could provide pooled resources to give those unable to save enough to be part of a service to gain expensive healthcare. The idea that insurance companies should provide for existing conditions is the same as requiring home insurance companies to provide fire insurance after your house caught on fire and the individual was motivated to buy the insurance.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Herb7734 5 years, 5 months ago
    Because, when it comes to the fact that in the case of humans, one size never fits all a universal health care is not possible, only custom designed policies can be designed to suit individuals. However, in order to be comprehensive the cost would be enormous if the provider hoped to make a profit. Unless health care becomes a universal private charity.
    It is the ancient question of: "What happens when an irrisistable object meets an immovable post.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by DrZarkov99 5 years, 5 months ago
    Remember, Obamacare was the result of a joint effort by the insurance companies and the government, and included lots of insurance company ideas. See how well that turned out?

    A better idea is to restore the doctor/patient relationship with Direct Primary Care (DPC). With DPC, the patient pays a subscriber fee to a doctors group, with no insurer of government agency involved. The fee covers physicals, immunizations, minor outpatient surgery. Prescriptions are at the doctors' cost, and the prices are often less than the copays under insurance programs.

    Subscriber costs are much lower than medical insurance. As little as $50/month for adults, and $10/month for minors. You can find the nearest DPC provider here: https://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/ .

    DPC providers usually recommend subscribers get catastrophic care insurance, a low cost program to cover emergency care, hospital costs, and long term care. They also don't turn away people with preexisting conditions.

    There are also surgery centers that post cash prices, and deal with only individuals and self insured companies, no insurance companies or government involved. You can find some here: https://aapsonline.org/surgery-center... .
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Ben_C 5 years, 5 months ago
    For me the first step is to get rid of the 501(c)3 and 501(c)6 status of hospitals. Have them "for profit" and the freeloaders in the ER will go bye bye.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by CircuitGuy 5 years, 5 months ago
    If the gov't completely withdrew, there wouldn't be that much for the President, Congress, and CEOs to do on this issue. Amazingly, problems that seem intractable would disappear. Drug stores would start offering more services. People would be free to take their chances and just get the same meds they always take or decide what level of expert they need to consult for a "med check". There would be no prescriptions.

    There have been health sharing ministries run by religions for decades. In these programs, members agree to contribute a monthly donation and optionally send get well cards to people who are making claims and to send sympathy cards to bereaved families. There are levels of contributions that correspond to levels of payment you'll receive if you get sick. I can imagine secular versions of this cropping up.

    That's just one idea. All kinds of telemedicine technologies are being developed, and they would come faster with more freedom.

    Most people now use insurance that attempts to manage even small routine healthcare expenses. Neither the patient nor the provider have any way to know or reason to care what the price is. This is a disastrous way to run a market.

    If gov't just got out of it, including regulating prescriptions, addictive drugs, and everything, there would be some problems. There would be some people taken in by patent medicine. There would be some people who make a mistake and don't get treatment. But all that happens now. Pharmacies now sell homeopathic meds, really just inert ingredients, along side scientifically validated medicines.

    I really think if the gov't backed out of it in a controlled way, in less than 10 years it would be way better than it is today.

    BTW, I tought PPACA was a mixed bag. I still do. I think it fixed something things. But it's done its job of increasing use of insurance for small things, and I think that's very bad. My opinion of it has decreased.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ rockymountainpirate 5 years, 5 months ago
    As long as big Pharma and insurance companies are able to lobby, and our elected employees are able to take their handouts, there will be no changes in healthcare, which by the way has little to do with health. The goal is single payer.

    There are alternatives to this plan. Chose wisely what you but into your bodies. I have so many testimonies of people who have gotten off all or most of their prescription drugs, including getting their kids off their adhd meds just by putting good food in their bodies. It's amazing what our bodies can do if we just feed them.

    My business shows you how to get off that hamster wheel of taking a drug to counteract the drug you're taking to counteract the other drug your taking and helps you get strong and healthy and as a bonus you can also get wealthy.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  

FORMATTING HELP

  • Comment hidden. Undo