What Would Your Solution Be To The Healthcare Crisis?

[elamigo]

Originally Posted by KT13

Although I agree with some points you are making especially with regards to the bill being reviewed, I still think there are some important things you overlook.

Universal healthcare of some form exists in most of the developed countries. US is the only developed country in the world that doesn't have anything close to any type of public option. this is not a new concept and it works. It's just we are light years away from it because this would require complete overhaul that is not possible in one administration. It's not something we can do by simply 'fixing' bits and pieces or enhancing what we have, that won't work, we would have to change this entire system from bottom up.

Here is where I do not share your views. You say it work in other countries. I am not saying that universal health care does not provide assistance to everybody. Actually, what I wrote before can cover everybody. The main concept I do not agree with is to make a system that forces everybody to join. We can help everybody under what I mention. Did I not say the states can coordinate with individuals that cannot afford expensive treatment? Yes I did. Should we pay high taxes to cover even Bill Gates? Not in my book. When you make it universal, you make a huge bureaucratic system that becomes expensive and cumbersome. Canada and I believe England and Germany and France are starting to struggle to maintain such an expensive system. Those systems in the beginning everybody is happy because everybody does not have to worry about it, Big Brother will take care of you.
People would spend money on minor treatments but when it comes to catastrophic and expensive system the states with the assistance of the federal government and even corporations as many actually do can help. We just need to cover some loose ends to cover everybody. Also, when you have universal care the system is overburdened and start to deny services because it is not possible to attend everybody since there is not competition for them. That is why many Canadians even some special trips to bring them across the border to get the variety of treatment they need to wait so long to get even though it may be less expensive and/or free.


People need insurance in our current system. Not having insurance is a big deal, I don't know where you got that notion that it's optional. It's optional if you don't care what happens to you or your family and if you don't care about your future and your credit and are just the type of person who simply walks away from your bills. If you are the person who goes to emergency room, gets treated and has nothing to lose not paying your bill then I can see how it can be optional. Or if you can qualify for the Medicaid or hospital charities.

Of the people that do not have insurance, how many are by choice because they rather use it for other purposes? What are the age brackets of people that do not have insurance and what are the percentages in those brackets? Many people do go get free medical care in many counties. Also, many people that claim they have no help I have seen that in the end the problem is education as to where to go and where to get assistance. To me there is where many people have a problem. Many people need to get better informed. I have a book that covers state by state the programs they have for the uninsured. You would be amazed of how much help does exist out there. It is just that people do not know and in some cases are not proactive in finding out.

People currently don't have much freedom to choose. Many end up taking jobs that pay measly wages or never able to open their own business just for the sole reason to have medical insurance. It's slavery because your coverage is 'brilliantly' tied to your employment. Not many can afford private insurance as it often comes with very high deductibles which means most of your healthcare (except extreme high ticket items) is out of pocket often at inflated prices.

What I said above already covers this point. You can have insurance to cover at least the minimal necessities. Now, the more well off you are the better coverage you can have. But if you are of lesser economic means the state can assist proportionately to the point to help that simply have no means to pay. That is less expensive and taxpayer money is used more wisely than the attitude of "Let us pay for everybody" regardless of economic status.

Private insurance is useless for 'small medical problems' you are referring to because you do pay for these problems out of pocket under most high deductible plans anyway, it's given. If you want a low deductible plan you will get slammed with the high premium, you will end up paying one way or the other. I am paying for my small medical problems out of pocket and that's the reality. My insurance is pretty much for disaster situations, like major surgeries and hospitalizations. And I hope they'll pay, which isn't always so for some unfortunate patients.

Private insurance could pay for small medical problems if the premium is only for small problems. The more expensive the insurance the more coverage. As I said, the more you earn in life the easier it is to pay for more and you should so you do not have to burden the taxpayer.

Let me give another example in life. Do we all have to eat? Of course we all do. However, not everybody can eat everything. Because some people cannot afford to eat what others can, are we going to mandate everybody be able to eat steak also so everybody is happy? Or are we now going to demand that only one steak a week so everybody eat steak?

People come in such variety in life and some earn more than others so some have more in life than others.
Now, life is not fair so some are born in luxury and some are not. Some work harder than others. Some do cheat on others, that will never stop. All we can do is minimize it as much as we can.

I tell people that the moral fiber of a society is how we treat our children, our poor and our elders. I do believe in helping those that have less in life even if it due to their own fault in some cases. But what I do not agree and I repeat is to simply mandate universal systems that may cover everybody but in the end find themselves stagnating progress and competition. Competition helps keep progress going.

You have a great day.
El Amigo

[KT13]

Originally Posted by elamigo

I tell people that the moral fiber of a society is how we treat our children, our poor and our elders. I do believe in helping those that have less in life even if it due to their own fault in some cases. But what I do not agree and I repeat is to simply mandate universal systems that may cover everybody but in the end find themselves stagnating progress and competition. Competition helps keep progress going.

It seems like moral fiber of society matters to you and how we treat our poor, elderly and children determines how progressive our society is. We provide services for elderly and we provide free school education for the children as well as various programs for the poor. We pay for all these programs out of our taxes. Taxes are mandatory and we are all forced to pay them regardless whether or not we agree what the money gets spent on.

So, how is healthcare so different from all the other services that you consider important that we already provide and pay for? I don't understand this point. Why is healthcare different than let's say school education for our kids? Why shouldn’t those who are middle class and who also barely make the ends meet and live paycheck to paycheck not benefit from free healthcare like those who report no income do? Why should providing healthcare for poor out of your taxes be in addition to also having to purchase your own insurance and paying for preventative care out of pocket at inflated prices?

How come we deserve to be double-taxed? We pay for the poor to get free medicare and medicaid out of our taxes, we also pay for our own treatments out of pocket and for our insurance. The prices keep growing higher every year, the rates hospitals charge for simple things are outrageous because there is another layer of population beyond medicare and medicaid that simply refuses to pay thereby pro-rating the costs to us. So, I pay for those who are covered by government programs out of taxes, I pay my own insurance, I pay higher prices for treatments because others don't pay. And at the end, I am still stressed out what would happen if some catastrophic event I am buying insurance against were to occur? Would I be covered? Would I be refused and have to fight and hire lawyers to get what I've been paying into for years and years?

Universal healthcare will treat everyone fairly: the poor, the elderly, the young, the middle class and those who are slightly better off but are still struggling to make it and don't deserve the double burden and stress.

Universal healthcare will remove the burden from corporations and small businesses to provide health insurance making it easier to retain workers in the US, it would remove liability burden from other non-related insurance policies lowering prices and it would free people from being slaves to their less than ideal employment circumstances purely for medical reasons.

Also, why do you think that our healthcare is cheaper than what is offered in other countries? Do you know how much of your healthcare dollar goes towards the unnecessary layers of overhead and admin?

Are you personally satisfied with our current state of healthcare?

[jertheber]

Originally Posted by Cliffie

Here's mine: they could have saved months of haggling and BS by simply passing a law, effective immediately, that says:

A) Everyone has to have health insurance.

B) Every provider has to be able to bill every health plan.

C) Every health insurance plan has to be non-profit. From now on, they can only compete by being user-friendly, faster and more efficient than other plans, or by offering optional riders people can choose or not choose to cover drugs and procedures not covered under the basic package everyone has, like Viagra and cosmetic surgery.

D) Health coverage cannot be cut off when you lose your job. If that happens, the government picks up the premium until you have a new job.

What are your thoughts?

Sounds good to me except that in our profit driven culture most people don't trust, nor believe in non-profit anything. This is at the heart of all the debating in America that takes to task the capitalistic notions we have grown up with.

Socialism is a very frightening concept to the great unwashed of our times, it seems that the very supporters of this monopoly-business capitalism are the ones who may need the power of a great central government to protect them from the ravages we have just seen in the latest boondoggle from Wall Street.

Democratic measures are never assumed in our so called democratic society. Most people will continue to ignore the vast difference between democratic, and state socialism. We now have a hybrid economy wherein the upper class can call for socialization of the public wealth when their own is jepordized. Where does this leave the average working slob? Well, just look at some history and you'll know .

[Gideon7620]

My solution is fire most doctors and let the teminally sick die; they are going to die anyway. FIre all the Ceo's of Insurance companies and big corporation; they are frauds anyway. Put everyone in Jail that has been and was involved in CEO's fraud system of pay. Then revamp the entire medical code system for billing purposes; have same codes and prices for all providers. Force doctors to take pay cut, they get paid too much anyhow. Finally stick it to big pharma companies, and force them to reduce cost and lower profits. It is that simple. This will create an instant fix.

[elamigo]

Originally Posted by KT13

It seems like moral fiber of society matters to you and how we treat our poor, elderly and children determines how progressive our society is. We provide services for elderly and we provide free school education for the children as well as various programs for the poor. We pay for all these programs out of our taxes. Taxes are mandatory and we are all forced to pay them regardless whether or not we agree what the money gets spent on.

So, how is healthcare so different from all the other services that you consider important that we already provide and pay for? I don't understand this point. Why is healthcare different than let's say school education for our kids? Why shouldn’t those who are middle class and who also barely make the ends meet and live paycheck to paycheck not benefit from free healthcare like those who report no income do? Why should providing healthcare for poor out of your taxes be in addition to also having to purchase your own insurance and paying for preventative care out of pocket at inflated prices?

How come we deserve to be double-taxed? We pay for the poor to get free medicare and medicaid out of our taxes, we also pay for our own treatments out of pocket and for our insurance. The prices keep growing higher every year, the rates hospitals charge for simple things are outrageous because there is another layer of population beyond medicare and medicaid that simply refuses to pay thereby pro-rating the costs to us. So, I pay for those who are covered by government programs out of taxes, I pay my own insurance, I pay higher prices for treatments because others don't pay. And at the end, I am still stressed out what would happen if some catastrophic event I am buying insurance against were to occur? Would I be covered? Would I be refused and have to fight and hire lawyers to get what I've been paying into for years and years?

Universal healthcare will treat everyone fairly: the poor, the elderly, the young, the middle class and those who are slightly better off but are still struggling to make it and don't deserve the double burden and stress.

Universal healthcare will remove the burden from corporations and small businesses to provide health insurance making it easier to retain workers in the US, it would remove liability burden from other non-related insurance policies lowering prices and it would free people from being slaves to their less than ideal employment circumstances purely for medical reasons.

Also, why do you think that our healthcare is cheaper than what is offered in other countries? Do you know how much of your healthcare dollar goes towards the unnecessary layers of overhead and admin?

Are you personally satisfied with our current state of healthcare?

Your question as to how health care is different than other social programs is this.

At the moment I do not remember how it is called but it is a principle that deals with how people react to situation and decisions when they affect a group.

Later I may have to go to my literature and re-read. But this is what I remember. The principle has to do with an issue that affects everybody.
You may say health care affects everybody. It does but this is the angle I address. Health care is an issue of choice when it comes who you want to go for help. We all need health care. The choices need to be there. Now, compare that with let us say national security. As a nation we all need a single force to take care of the nation. It would not make sense to expect every single individual to contract Soldiers to protect them. As a nation we have an Army to take care of that at national level and we also have the same at local level with a city police to protect the security of everybody because we all need it. On health care, it is easier to allow people to pick the doctor and the type of treatment they want. If I get sick it does not necessarily affect you. If the nation is attacked it affects you and me and everybody. That is why we have a national defense program to protect everybody.

Now, the type of system I have mentioned still does cover everybody but it is not a mandated blanket system. It allows people to choose. Those that for whatever reason cannot pay for a program, sure we as a nation can help. We are a team and as such help each other.

People tend to complain as I am saying let them rut on the streets. I am simply saying we can have a system that is less expensive, still provides helpt for everybody, AND we have more choices, not just one program where the government controls our lives.

To me it is a waste of your taxes to tell Bill Gates that he has to have the government doctor attend to his needs. He has the money to take care of himself and the choice to go wherever he wants to wihtout a single penny from our pockets, the taxpayer. That is what national health care systems do in general.

You mentioned we provide assistance to children and elders. Do these programs provide help to all the children regardless of economic status? Do these systems provide care for the elders regardless of economic status? In many cases they do not. Look at food stamps. They are based on income, correct? Well, we can do the same in some form with health care.

I am in the middle class bracket myself. But if I earn enough to pay for my own insurance and other service, so be it. I have not problem my taxes pay for those that have less than I. Now I am in the Army and many services are free or at lower rates but before I joined it did not bother me to pay for whatever social services I could afford. I also did not have a problem with assistance when I needed it. This type of program an mentality helps keep social programs costs the least expensive as possible and have better quality service through competition.

Now, those that reply my message keep telling me how it can't work and how national care is good. Fine, I respect that. But give me more substance. I have given examples on how we can take care of everybody. Where is the flaw in what I said? Did I miss someone with what I propose?

You have a great day.
El Amigo

You have a great day.
El Amigo