Retirement Crisis in America (Hawaii, percentage, buy, interest)
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I always get a kick out of over 65 people that say they are against government healthcare. Hello, you are already on it and probably pretty happy with it.
I am in favor of universal healthcare. Can't be any worse than what we have now with skyrocketing costs. And costs have been on the rise long before Obamacare.
I'm fine with universal health care if there are penalties for poor behavior. We want to keep people healthy, not dump money into lost causes. For example, CHIP kid Medicaid is dirt cheap and great bang for the buck. Medicaid is massively expensive because it's the dumping ground for chain smokers, alcoholics, druggies, and 500 pound couch potatoes with very expensive chronic medical conditions. Should every kid get world class medical treatment? Absolutely. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the taxpayer to fund all the massively expensive behavior-induced problems that suck Medicaid dry. If you want health care on the public dime, it's your obligation to keep yourself healthy. I'd do what the Brit NHS system does and tightly ration the behavior-induced chronic stuff. You eat yourself into riding the electric shopping cart at Walmart? You get nothing but very bare bones treatment for the heart disease, diabetes, and related chronic problems. You destroy your liver with alcohol? Not our problem. You get emphysema and cancer from smoking? The taxpayer shouldn't have to pay for it.
there are studies on both sides depending which side they take , that letting those who live poor healthy life styles continue to do so will not use as much in healthcare resources as they would living longer and being more healthy and going on to older ages .
i can't say which side is correct but it does make sense . dying younger has been a money saver in quite a few studies . which ever side i wanted to argue i bet i could find studies and statistics .
Last edited by mathjak107; 01-01-2018 at 05:42 AM..
nothing would likely be any better with a new rendition . i had two different insurers go belly up in two years time on those horrible aca plans . i could easily have paid the fine , got catastrophic insurance and ended up with pretty much what i had as an aca plan for way less money . it was basically pay as you go and for that i paid 6k a year for myself . if i wanted the same plan this year it went up to 8800.00 plus 6800 out of pocket .
Well, there are. I work in financial services and I know the data.
If you have a net worth of $1 million that includes all assets. Everybody has to live somewhere, and only a few people can downsize and have any money left. It is usually more economical to retire in place.
That *is* charity, unless you mean that everyone pays the actuarially fair rate for the insurance, which they won't do because they can't.
Sure we can. It's called reshapping your HC industry and rationing care.
There are plenty of countries with affordable Healthcare - that is what they do. No paid transplants, no high-priced treatments, all drug prices regulated, limits everywhere, but you can go to the doctor and get your meds for < $100 USD/visit.
Ask anyone who works in a public hospital. There are billions thrown at chronic patients whose condition does not change from extended treatments - limit this and you have cut 30% or more from our HC costs. Some might cry but there is the greater good to consider.
I'm fine with universal health care if there are penalties for poor behavior. We want to keep people healthy, not dump money into lost causes. For example, CHIP kid Medicaid is dirt cheap and great bang for the buck. Medicaid is massively expensive because it's the dumping ground for chain smokers, alcoholics, druggies, and 500 pound couch potatoes with very expensive chronic medical conditions. Should every kid get world class medical treatment? Absolutely. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the taxpayer to fund all the massively expensive behavior-induced problems that suck Medicaid dry. If you want health care on the public dime, it's your obligation to keep yourself healthy. I'd do what the Brit NHS system does and tightly ration the behavior-induced chronic stuff. You eat yourself into riding the electric shopping cart at Walmart? You get nothing but very bare bones treatment for the heart disease, diabetes, and related chronic problems. You destroy your liver with alcohol? Not our problem. You get emphysema and cancer from smoking? The taxpayer shouldn't have to pay for it.
There are always unreimbursed expenses when treating a Medicare patient. If a medicare patient is a financial loss, physicians sometimes refuse to take new Medicare patients. If you keep your doctor when you retire, you probably don't have a problem. If you need to find a new physician because you moved or some other reason, over half of Medicare recipients report difficulty finding a new primary care physician, and 5% (one in 20) never do. Access to care is a serious problem. Access to specialist care is variable, with only 3.8% reporting difficulty finding timely care in Nebraska, vs. 13.5% in New Mexico.
Only 1% of physicians have opted out of the Medicare contract. Many more triage new patients for adequate supplemental insurance plans. Just because you have Medicare does not mean they want to see you.
If you have never heard of someone having a problem with that, now you have.
When I say I have never heard of someone having a problem with it, it is based on working with Medicare patients for close to 20 years. I'll go by what I see with my own eyes and hear from patients directly, thanks.
Well of course health insurance is expensive because medical care is expensive.
But how expensive? We all know of someone who had their doctor or hospital bill reduced by 80% or 90% when they paid for it themselves. I don't really think we could reduce the overall cost of medical care by quite that much with a competitive consumer market, but we sure could reduce it somewhat.
It's usually the opposite. Unless you are getting charity care. Insurance groups negotiate lower rates while people who pay cash pay more. My outpatient back surgery had a cost just for use of the hospital for 6 hours of $64,000, not including any doc or anesthesia, just the room. They billed Blue Cross a fraction of that, but if I wasn't insured I'd be on the hook because my income isn't low enough for charity care and I don't get the lower rates insurance companies get. Why is use of an OR for a few hours $64,000? That is the question.
When I say I have never heard of someone having a problem with it, it is based on working with Medicare patients for close to 20 years. I'll go by what I see with my own eyes and hear from patients directly, thanks.
It's Medicaid that loses money for health care providers. Pretty much all the group medical practices are now affiliated with a hospital so they can at least come close to breaking even. For the most part, anybody who isn't affiliated with a hospital these days refuses Medicaid patients.
Nobody in power has questioned why the US has the highest health care cost in the world while leaving millions uncovered and no improvement in life expectancy. The Medical Industrial Complex admits a third of treatment is unnecessary, the real number is probably half. We really need to go after the waste with a chainsaw, not a scalpel.
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