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Dr. Ben Carson brilliant surgeon, absolutely embarrassingly ignorant on politics/public policy.
The ignorance is yours.
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I mean people will remember the insanity of that comment. He will forever be associated with saying a piece of legislation that pools people in various states for the purpose of buying health insurance from privately owned companies is as a bad as the enslavement of Africans.
Refer to the statement above.
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This is what I mean when I say conservatives are drifting further and further away from reality, because he said it in a room full of conservatives, they didn't react negatively to that insanity some of them cheered.
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The conservative party is beholden to a lot of insane people filled with strange fantasy beliefs that have no relation to reality.
For a brief moment, we were almost in agreement on something. And then you wrote this:
It isn't people who want health insurance that will be the problem. It's the people who are being forced to buy it, whether they want to or not.
Out of curiosity, did you know that one of the main contributors to the rise in health care costs - just like in most areas of the economy - is government involvement in private business? Expecting government involvement to make anything more affordable overall fits the definition of insanity.
No, it was affordable. Now premiums are going up on average 41% across the nation. What part of that are you not getting?
Refering to the bolded part, how do you account for the difference in cost between Medicare, a government run program and private health insurance costs.
Not too many years ago I transitioned from a BCBS employer provided health insurance to Medicare. I have cardiology and vascular issues. I had a series of catheterization procedures at the same hospital within 18 months of each other, all identical.
The "chargemaster" amount the hospital billed my insurance or Medicare was outrageous, as they always are. The mutually agreed upon amount paid by Blue Cross was almost 35% more than the standard Medicare payment for the procedure.
If what you say is true, then how come the government run Medicare program for the exact same procedure done at the exact same hospital was 35% cheaper than private insurance and private insurance was 9 times cheaper than what the hospital chargemaster was????
The numbers were
Chargemaster=43,000.00
BCBS=5,800.00
Medicare=3750.0
Just trying to dispel another well established conservative myth when they are trying to defund, cut back or entirely eliminate various social safety net programs.
Quote=Expecting government involvement to make anything more affordable overall fits the definition of insanity
Nah, they don't hate him for telling the truth, they laugh at him for his inane opinions.
Yes, they do hate him for telling the truth. Dr Carson rose to national prominence for having the nerve to stand up and give a speech that contradicted the president's ideology while the president was sitting next to him. Liberals had a conniption fit about how disrespectful and rude that was. That's how Dr Carson rose to prominence in the first place.
Refering to the bolded part, how do you account for the difference in cost between Medicare, a government run program and private health insurance costs.
Not too many years ago I transitioned from a BCBS employer provided health insurance to Medicare. I have cardiology and vascular issues. I had a series of catheterization procedures at the same hospital within 18 months of each other, all identical.
The "chargemaster" amount the hospital billed my insurance or Medicare was outrageous, as they always are. The mutually agreed upon amount paid by Blue Cross was almost 35% more than the standard Medicare payment for the procedure.
If what you say is true, then how come the government run Medicare program for the exact same procedure done at the exact same hospital was 35% cheaper than private insurance and private insurance was 9 times cheaper than what the hospital chargemaster was????
The numbers were
Chargemaster=43,000.00
BCBS=5,800.00
Medicare=3750.0
Just trying to dispel another well established conservative myth when they are trying to defund, cut back or entirely eliminate various social safety net programs.
Quote=Expecting government involvement to make anything more affordable overall fits the definition of insanity
I am living proof that that is not the case.
It's very simple to account for it. Government has guns. Therefore, government pays what it wants. Then the healthcare providers make up for the losses by overcharging private insurers, who make up for the extra cost by raising premiums.
It makes no economic sense to turn away a paying customer. Sellers want more customers, not less. So, if government wasn't lowballing healthcare providers, then doctors wouldn't be refusing to see medicare and medicaid patients. But they are.
Your mistake is believing that since medicare paid less for a service, that means the service cost less. It didn't. The cost was simply passed on to someone else.
It's very simple to account for it. Government has guns. Therefore, government pays what it wants. Then the healthcare providers make up for the losses by overcharging private insurers, who make up for the extra cost by raising premiums.
I know for a fact that Medicare pays the going cost of the hospital for a particular procedure plus a built in percentage of profit. And that is a fact. I also know that the detractors of medicare constantly harp on how much the hospitals and medical centers are ringing up fraudulent charges. If the hospitals are losing so much money on Medicare, how can they be simultaneously bilking the government for billions? It's got to be one or the other.
It's very simple to account for it. Government has guns. Therefore, government pays what it wants. Then the healthcare providers make up for the losses by overcharging private insurers, who make up for the extra cost by raising premiums.
It makes no economic sense to turn away a paying customer. Sellers want more customers, not less. So, if government wasn't lowballing healthcare providers, then doctors wouldn't be refusing to see medicare and medicaid patients. But they are.
Your mistake is believing that since medicare paid less for a service, that means the service cost less. It didn't. The cost was simply passed on to someone else.
If you're going to be honest, they you should say "Some" doctors or more accurately, "A few" doctors. The vast majority of doctors and hospitals accept medicare.
The doctor claims that the Affordable Healthcare Act is the worst thing to happen to this country since slavery. Now, I'm not here to argue how dumb the statement is or nothing, but to make a list of all the things that have happened in this country that are considerably worse than Obamacare. I'll start off:
1. Eugenics in the United States.
That is what Obamacare will lead to if they follow Ezekiel Emanuel's idea of giving less treatment to some groups when resources are scarce.
Refering to the bolded part, how do you account for the difference in cost between Medicare, a government run program and private health insurance costs.
There is no difference in actual costs.
Medicare simply doesn't pay it, resulting in cost transfer to non-medicare consumers.
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Not too many years ago I transitioned from a BCBS employer provided health insurance to Medicare. I have cardiology and vascular issues. I had a series of catheterization procedures at the same hospital within 18 months of each other, all identical.
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The "chargemaster" amount the hospital billed my insurance or Medicare was outrageous, as they always are. The mutually agreed upon amount paid by Blue Cross was almost 35% more than the standard Medicare payment for the procedure.
As I said above, the actual cost doesn't change. Medicare simply underfunds services, and providers provide them while transferring costs to other consumers. There is no cost reduction whatsoever.
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If what you say is true, then how come the government run Medicare program for the exact same procedure done at the exact same hospital was 35% cheaper than private insurance and private insurance was 9 times cheaper than what the hospital chargemaster was????
Already explaind
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The numbers were
Chargemaster=43,000.00
BCBS=5,800.00
Medicare=3750.0
None of these changed the cost.
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Just trying to dispel another well established conservative myth when they are trying to defund, cut back or entirely eliminate various social safety net programs.
Quote=Expecting government involvement to make anything more affordable overall fits the definition of insanity
I am living proof that that is not the case.
The only thing you proved is that you have no idea what you're talking about.
If you're going to be honest, they you should say "Some" doctors or more accurately, "A few" doctors. The vast majority of doctors and hospitals accept medicare.
The percentage is shrinking, while the number of medicare enrollees is growing.
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