I think the speech was to rally Democrats. With a clear plan and leadership he can get this done, without Republicans.
no, when you have more people on the government option, the government is paying MORE money for health care services and the hospitals and doctors are actually losing money treating these people. Inefficiency is more than matched by being non profit? How so? Look at Medicare. Look at any program the government runs. I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. If anything, the scale tips the other way
Same reason companies offer the option now, when individuals can get private health care and it would save the company a ton of money. CBO estimates are that 4-5 million people would be on the government option. Medicare is more efficient than the private sector, uses more of its money on actual care as opposed to administration than the private sector, and has consistently higher satisfaction ratings than the private sector. The problem is that there was no adjustable funding mechanism for Medicare, so when health care costs in general skyrocketed, Medicare costs did so as well without a funding source. This new system is designed to be self-sustaining and independent. Doctors can choose whether or not to accept the public plan, just as they can with Medicare. If it's not in their best interest, they can simply not take it. Medicare doesn't fit that description. And the $300/screw is nonsense - generally, there are legit explanations to those things. Most of that tends to be funds directed to off-budget black ops type stuff and happens primarily in military and/or CIA type budgets. The difference is that Bush made no attempt to pay for those things - he didn't have a financing mechanism. This plan is entirely designed around being deficit neutral through various financing mechanisms. Except there's no reason we will end up with a majority government plan, unless the gov't does a better job providing health care to the public than the private sector does - which, from what I can tell, you believe is not possible.
It's not a charity program, they will charge premiums. So more people in the program pay more premiums. If the ratio of sick to healthy people is the same then it wouldn't matter how large it got. Neither you nor I have the expertise to say whether the inefficiencies of a non-profit program equal the amount of profit required by corporate programs but I think the amount of lobbying being paid for by corporations is the biggest indicator that they want to keep their cash cow.
I could be wrong, but I believe this was exactly the case for the $500 hammer or whatever incident from many years back.
Having read your entire response, I don't believe that you are responding to the plan the President laid out last night. As Obama said, businesses that do not currently pay for their employees to have insurance will have to "chip in" to help pay to cover their employees. This means that a company will have to do a cost-benefit analysis to figure out if they will save money by shifting their employees to the public option. Then, they have to figure out if the public option, which Obama described as a "basic" level of health insurance, is enough to keep their employees happy. Then there is the question of whether the public option will allow employers to simply drop coverage without penalties. There are a lot of ways that the law can make it beneficial for companies to stay with their current providers and I would expect the initial version of this bill to incorporate these. I don't know why you are claiming that Medicare/Medicaid have been "destroyed." The people in this country who are happiest with their coverage are seniors, the people using these programs. I would agree with you that the prescription program has some serious cost issues, but those can be tweaked and IMO do not indicate a system that is "destroyed." Hospitals will continue to make money. Doctors will continue to make money. Under the plan that has been proposed, more than 250 million people's insurance will not change at all. Doctors and hospitals will be fine. To be fair, the only place where this level of waste has been uncovered is in the DoD. I suspect that the reason that they have such "waste" is because of off the books projects that they can't talk to accountants about. Medicare has 1% administrative overhead. That is not waste, that is efficiency. Insurance companies have closer to 30% administrative overhead. I would posit that it is not the government in this instance that is "damned inefficient." $90 billion per year is not that much in the grand scheme of things. We will see a LOT of that saved once the troops come home from Iraq. Obama has also shown how he will get much of the money and the CBO has outlined even more ways to pay for the program. We pay 1.5 times our nearest competitor per capit for health care. Even if we only bring it down to the level of that nearest competitor, that is still 33% savings, which will go a LONG way to solving many economic problems in this country. This is the issue the insurance exchange addresses. Once again, under the current proposal, the insurance companies aren't going anywhere. Everyone with insurance will continue to use it. Assuming there are job losses in the future as a result of the public option being competitive with the insurance companies, the increased volume will make it necessary for some of these people to go to work for the government run insurance company. Going into the ER to get treated for something that could be resolved in a doctor's office costs many times more, the costs get put on the taxpayer anyway if the patient can't pay, and preventative care could obviate the need for many ER visits and expensive procedures in the future. TECHNICALLY, you are correct, but EXPENSIVE. Something needs to be done NOW to help fix these problems. Even if the plan needs to be tweaked in the future, the time for change is now. History proves you wrong. Government run healthcare in America today is one of the most efficient systems out there. Medicare has 1% administrative overhead. That is about as efficient as you can make it without turning the entire system over to machines. As do I. We need to make a change, this is the change on the table, and your concerns seem to have been addressed by the plan.
major- individuals cannot AFFORD private health care insurance unless it's on a company plan. ask any self employed person (my mother for example or my stepfather...personal coverage is too expensive) CBO estimates? What about the 40mm people this is supposed to help? 4-5mm? Medicare being more efficient? I guess you skipped the part where I told you Medicare doesn't pay enough to cover fixed costs minus salaries...they simply refuse to pay the correct amount and doctors lose money on patients. how would I know this? My wife is a doctor. It is also a black hole and is completely underwater despite paying too-low rates If doctors can choose, no one would accept Medicare. They have to in many cases. Disagree on the CIA/black ops stuff. As far as efficiencies go, please give me an example of when a government program has actually been fiscally efficient. Hell, look at FEMA and how messed up that was Re: Bush and Iraq. I agree he had no funding mechanism, but this funding mechanism is not going to actually cover the costs...I don't doubt that it will be 3x more than they say...so we go into more debt or add a VAT or something to fund it. Think about it...this is supposed to be for people who cannot afford health insurance...so you can't expect the small premiums they will pay to cover the costs. ****, an overnight hospital stay will drain all the premiums you pay over a year. And yes, employers can simply stop paying their half or all of the plans they currently pay for so people will be forced to use the gov't option. It's a helluva lot easier to stop the program as an employer when you can get gov't coverage...not an option now as private health insurance for individuals is too expensive.
my last post here because I am at work and this is taking up too much of my time today... MEDICARE DOES NOT COVER FIXED COSTS. That's taking out salaries. You're damn right it seems efficient...they pay 50 cents for every dollar the hospital spends. Who loses? Health care providers. You all act as if it's this great program and sure the people in the plan like it...but the actual health care providers are getting screwed...royally by Medicare. You all act as if it's this great program...it is...unless you are actually a doctor now I will let you all go back to the debate.
1 republican will do... and I know we do need reform to be passed. But it's just going to polarize us further. I'm playing devil's advocate here btw. Obama stated that people are naturally skeptical of government. We need to seriously look at the best ideas of both sides and then hammer something through. If a bill of this magnitude is written by only democrats and only democrats vote for it, then I feel that we will be in the worst political climate of our lifetime. People who don't associate themselves with the Democratic Party (remember that Obama is popular with Independents) will lose trust and vote the other way to even the playing field. Remember when the Republicans ran everything and rammed legislation/policy down the people's throats... we need to learn from their mistakes.
I'm self-employed and have that private health insurance - I know all the issues there. But they have to buy the public option plan too. They are expected to choose private plans. Again - if they don't pay enough, these doctors don't have to accept the plan. There is no requirement there. FEMA is a perfect example. It worked extremely well in the 1990s - it was one of the examples of government-gone-right. It just had incompetent leadership in the 2000's, combined with the fact that the merger with Homeland Security shifted its focus to terrorist type disasters instead of natural disasters. Based on what, exactly? I'm not sure you understand how the plan and the financing works. And they would pay a fee to the government instead. How does that help the employer?
I agree with that - but I think we're already there, so now the issue is: do you let the GOP kill anything they don't like just because they won't for it? We have the primary Senate GOP negotiator (Grassley) saying he won't vote for a bill he negotiates unless 20+ Republicans are on board. That says to me that he's only interested in the politics of it - you either like the bill or you don't. Your vote shouldn't be based on whether other GOPers vote for it. I agree, except that the general public seems to agree that the GOP is the one being obstinate here. All polls consistently show that people think Dems are trying harder to work with the GOP than vice-versa. With the Bush policies, they didn't even make an attempt to work with Dems - here, the opposite is the case. I think at the end of the day, people will blame the GOP for them not voting on it rather than the Dems.
This is a great reason for a public option, to reduce the costs so that anyone and everyone can afford coverage. 5/6, 83% of the people out there are going to see no change in their insurance company under this plan. That means that 83% of the procedures will be paid for appropriately. In addition, there will be far fewer people crowding ERs as they will go to the doctor instead, which will drastically reduce pressures on hospitals to do procedures for which they receive no money whatsoever. One way or another, doctors will continue to be paid high salaries. Hospitals may see some reduction in profits, but doctors will get theirs. This is the case even in the UK, where the entire healthcare system, hospitals included, are run by the government. Yes, because healthcare costs have spiraled out of control and then we added a remarkably inefficient component in the prescription program. Doctors can choose. All doctors that I know of have the right to refuse any insurance, including Medicare. I suppose this might not be the case if you work for a hospital, but doctors with their own practice pretty much have the right to choose what they will and won't accept, as far as I have been told. You can disagree on the black ops stuff if you want, but DoD is the only place I have heard of the "waste" on the massive scale that you claim. To quote Independence Day... President Pullman: Where did you get the money to pay for all of this David's dad: You don't really think they pay $1000 for a hammer or $800 for a toilet seat, do you? FEMA is an agency that is supposed to spend a lot of money to help areas recover after disasters. How exactly are they supposed to be the model of fiscal responsibility? 3X as much as they say? Don't you think this is a little hyperbolic? And every time someone visits the doctor instead of going to the ER for treatment of a minor affliction, we will save scads of money. There is a tradeoff. And pay premiums to the government instead. You did hear the president talk about how businesses that do not provide insurance will have to pay into the fund, right? If the public option provides a "basic" level of healthcare, but the insurance company provides added services or benefits, the employees might consider going to another job if their insurance is changed to the public option.
But look at what was being "rammed" down our throats... War in Iraq Tax cuts for the rich Awful Supreme Court justices Right now we are talking about something that assures that everyone has health insurance. Kind of a different situation.
