http://www.newsweek.com/id/209817 What’s Not to Like? Reform? Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is. Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are. I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about "socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare." That's the spirit! Why should I be entitled to the same insurance that members of Congress get? Blue Dogs need a lot of medical attention to treat their blueness. I'm just a regular guy and definitely deserve less. I had cancer a few years ago. I like the fact that if I lose my job, I won't be able to get any insurance because of my illness. It reminds me of my homeowners' insurance, which gets canceled after a break-in. I like the choice I'd face if, God forbid, the cancer recurs—sell my house to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, or die. That's what you call a "post-existing condition." I like the absence of catastrophic insurance today. It meant that my health-insurance plan (one of the better ones, by the way) only covered about 75 percent of the cost of my cutting-edge treatment. That's as it should be—face cancer and shell out huge amounts of money at the same time. Nice. I like the "lifetime limits" that many policies have today. Missed the fine print on that one, did you? It means that after you exceed a certain amount of reimbursement, you don't get anything more from the insurance company. That's fair. Speaking of fair, it seems fair to me that cost-cutting bureaucrats at the insurance companies—not doctors—decide what's reimbursable. After all, the insurance companies know best. Yes, the insurance company status quo rocks. I learned recently about something called the "loading fees" of insurance companies. That's how much of every health-care dollar gets spent by insurance companies on things other than the medical care—paperwork, marketing, profits, etc. According to a University of Minnesota study, up to 47 percent of all the money going into the health-insurance system is consumed in "loading fees." Even good insurance companies spend close to 30 percent on nonmedical stuff. Sweet. The good news is that the $8,000 a year per family that Americans pay for their employer-based health insurance is heading up! According to the Council of Economic Advisers, it will hit $25,000 per family by 2025. The sourpusses who want health-care reform say that's "unsustainable." Au contraire. And how could the supporters of these reform bills believe in anything as stupid as a "public option"? Do they really believe that the health-insurance cartel deserves a little competition to keep them honest? Back in the day, they had a word for competition. A bad word. They called it capitalism. FedEx versus the U.S. Postal Service, CNN versus PBS—just because it's government-backed doesn't mean you can't compete against it. If they believed in capitalism, the insurance companies would join the fray and compete. I'm glad they don't. I prefer the status quo, where the for-profit insurance companies suck at the teat of the federal government. Corporate welfare's what we've got, and it's a damn good system. Through a wonderful program called Medicare Advantage, the insurance companies receive hundreds of billions of dollars in fees to administer a program that the government is already running. Don't touch that baby. You'd be messing with the handiwork of some fine lobbyists. You know what part of the status quo I like best? It's a longstanding system for paying doctors called "fee for service." That's where doctors get paid for each procedure they perform, as if my auto dealer got paid separately for the steering wheel, brakes, and horn instead of for the car. Fee-for-service is why the medical care at that doc-in-a-box at my mall is so superior to the Mayo Clinic or Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where the doctors are on salary. Who would want to mess with that? OK, if you really press me, I'm for one change. It's the one that Republicans trot out to prove they're "reformers," too. We could save our whole system if we just capped malpractice awards. Two of our biggest states—California and Texas—did it a few years ago and nothing has changed there, but who cares? It sounds good. Click here to find out more! So tell your congressmen and senators when they're home for the summer recess that it's too soon to address this issue. We've only been debating it for 97 years, since Theodore Roosevelt put national health insurance in the Bull Moose Party platform of 1912. We've only had 745 congressional hearings on the subject (I made that number up, but it's got to be close). That's not enough! Let's study this problem more before we do anything about it. Did I say "problem"? Who said there was a problem? Not me. I like the status quo. Doesn't really address the solution side of it, but it summarizes the problem side pretty damn well. I especially appreciate the last bit about the "slowing the process down" nonsense.
This government can't even effectively manage Cash for Clunkers. How in the name of Sweet Jesus does any rational thinker expect them to manage HEALTHCARE? The argument is simply laughable on its face.
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Gov't already is involved in insuring about 20-30% of the population, and those people consistently rate their quality of care much higher than private insurance. And, the gov't is actually substantially more efficient in terms of the amount of its expenses are for actual health care as opposed to administrative costs or waste.
Good job with the useless post that provides no useful content and does nothing to enhance your position.
^^^ Is this the biggest lie ever told on this BBS? Quite possibly so. Major, your credibility is shot after this incredible fib.
It's constantly amazing to see people who distrust the gouvernment invest so much faith in private enterprise. Wake up. They're both screwing you. One has an actual interest in keeping you alive as long as you're a consumer, the other has to keep you alive for taxation and if I were a betting man, I would wager on the party that has to stay put in the country.
So says the BBS poster who bases his posts on lies, half-truths and consistently states that he knows more than the experts in any given field. NO CRED FOR T_J. I am Refman and I approve this message. Paid for by Weslinder/Refman 2012.
Quality ratings of Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance by their members: https://www.cahps.ahrq.gov/content/NCBD/Chartbook/HEALTHPLAN08/cahps08chart19.htm Chart 19. Using 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst possible and 10 is the best possible, how would you rate your health plan?
Dang, you mean to say people are happy with healthcare that they don't have to pay for? WHO WOULDA THUNK IT? The left just has no intelligent position in this debate.
So one the one hand you state, without substantive argument that the government cannot possibly run efficient healthcare. Then when stats are provided that refute your point, you state, without substantive argument that it is because the healthcare is free. Come with facts or do not post at all. TIA.
Public Option To Cut Health Costs? Medicare's Record Says Dream On 'First, the rising cost of health care must be brought down." That's what President Obama recently declared when outlining the basic principles of his health care plan. His supporters have echoed his emphasis. The New York Times writes that, when it comes to health policy, "The president's main focus is on starting to reduce the soaring cost of health care." Speaker Pelosi concurs: Health care reform "is about cost — taking down the cost of health care." But can the president's plan succeed, even on his own terms? If history is any guide, it cannot — and will instead make matters much worse. The centerpiece of President Obama's plan is a "public option," described by Tom Daschle as "a government-run insurance program, modeled after Medicare." The president asserts that this new Medicare-like program would cut costs. But there are nearly 40 years of experience to consult, and they offer a resounding rebuttal. Across the years, Medicare's costs have risen far more than the costs of privately purchased care. A new study I've completed, published by the Pacific Research Institute, takes all health-care spending in the United States and subtracts the costs of the two flagship government-run programs, Medicare and Medicaid. It then takes that remaining spending and compares its cost increases over time with Medicare's cost increases over time. The results are clear: Since 1970 — even without the prescription drug benefit — Medicare's costs have risen 34% more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care in America apart from Medicare and Medicaid, the vast majority of which is purchased through the private sector. Since 1970, the per-patient costs of all health care apart from Medicare and Medicaid have risen from $364 to $7,119, while Medicare's per-patient costs have risen from $368 to $9,634. Medicare's costs have risen $2,511 more per patient. These conclusions are true despite very generous treatment of Medicare. My study counts Medicare's prescription drug expenditures as part of privately purchased care, rather than as part of Medicare. It counts health care purchased privately by Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries (including Medicare copayments and Medigap insurance) among the costs of private care, without counting its recipients among those receiving private care — thereby magnifying private care's per-person costs. And it doesn't adjust for cost-shifting from Medicare to private entities. The New York Times and others have quoted studies claiming that private insurance has failed to contain costs as well as Medicare. Such studies are deeply misleading, for they omit any consideration of out-of-pocket spending, thereby neglecting a major shift in the private health care market. From 1970 to 2007, out-of-pocket expenditures dropped from 62% of all private health care to just 26%. Correspondingly, insurance expenditures increased from 38% to 74%. These studies make no allowance for that change. That's a lot like looking at LP or CD sales, ignoring MP3s, and concluding that Americans are no longer as fond of music. The president himself says that "over the last decade" Americans "have seen their out-of-pocket expenses soar." But, according to official government figures, per-patient out-of-pocket costs have risen only 35% since 2000, while Medicare's per-patient costs have risen 59% — again, even without the prescription drug benefit. Private insurance and private out-of-pocket spending, in tandem, have controlled costs far better than Medicare. However, if Medicare has, in fact, fared comparatively well vs. private insurance — as the supporters of President Obama's proposals claim — then that means it has fared particularly poorly vs. private out-of-pocket spending, thereby further strengthening the argument that private consumers, paying out-of-pocket, are the best bargain-shoppers and the keenest pursuers of value in health care. From a policy perspective, this would suggest that the key to lowering costs is to let consumers control more of their own resources — that when they have the freedom and incentive to pursue value, they know how to keep costs down. The most important comparison, in the context of the current debate over a Medicare-like "public option," is between government-run health care and privately purchased health care on the whole. Across nearly four decades, Medicare's costs have risen more than one-third more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care nationwide apart from Medicare and Medicaid. This is true even when viewing Medicare's costs in a charitable light. President Obama asserts that creating a Medicare-like "public option" is the way to slow the rising costs of health care. Experience shows the opposite, that costs have risen faster under government-run care. As Benjamin Franklin and George Mason argued at the Constitutional Convention, let's defer to "experience, the best of all tests." • Anderson is a senior fellow in health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute and was the senior speechwriter for Secretary Mike Leavitt at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. link
Refman, when are you switching over to Medicaid? I mean, it's better than your private insurance, right? Right?
Do you even know what Medicaid is? If you did, you would know that Refman wouldn't be eligible for it.
What are you babbling about? Are you really this ignorant about Medicare/Medicaid? Do you have even the slightest clue about how they operate?
