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Obamacare without a government option simply holds America hostage to the greedy healthcare companies... like the middle class is not hurting enough. The mandatory healthcare policy is like forcing everyone to buy a new car every year to support the auto industry. I pay $1,100 a month for my wife and myself - that's a car payment on a really nice car, but I feel better knowing that perhaps the CEO of United Healthcre can give himself another 1 billion dollar bonus.
Every other major Western civilization has free healthcare for it's citizens. Why couldn't Obama at least provide a buy-in to Medicare?
So now that the big insurance corporations are seeing their stocks rise, guess we know who benefited from the ACA
You shouldn't be so upset over it. After all it!s the plan that had it!s origins with the R!s and the Heritage F. the D,s Wanted to fund it like SS and Medicare, but the R,s wanted It based on private insurance and subsidies for Low-income folks, etc., etc., ............... And now that!s what we have....... So stop complaining.
I wasn't complaining. I was pointing out the idiocy of blaming it on the group that didn't vote for it. But, since you brought it up, Obamacare is only barely related to the "Republican" plan. Not to mention, the Democrats hated the "Republican" plan. So again, blaming Obamacare on the Republicans is idiocy.
Obamacare without a government option simply holds America hostage to the greedy healthcare companies... like the middle class is not hurting enough. The mandatory healthcare policy is like forcing everyone to buy a new car every year to support the auto industry. I pay $1,100 a month for my wife and myself - that's a car payment on a really nice car, but I feel better knowing that perhaps the CEO of United Healthcre can give himself another 1 billion dollar bonus.
Every other major Western civilization has free healthcare for it's citizens. Why couldn't Obama at least provide a buy-in to Medicare?
Every other major Western civilization ( and then some) has a mandate for insurance or a contribution to a government sickness fund. Most of these countries require co-payments. Some have deductibles. No two countries do universal healthcare alike. Some countries rely on private insurers and some do not. Some own/operate hospitals and some do not.
There is no such thing as free heath care, anywhere.
Medicare is insurance and certainly not free. Most current beneficiaries paid into it their entire working lives. Medicare has been subsidized by general revenues and deficit spending all along. Medicare contains deductibles and co-pays. Many buy supplemental insurance to help pay for what Medicare does not.
Of course its their fault, Republicans have done NOTHING about healthcare but insure the system remains as broken as it was, is, and will be as long as they do everything they can to insure that privatized healthcare is the cause of 62% of personal bankruptcies in America.
Thanks for nothing Republicans, because that is exactly what they have offered in regards to medical coverage for working Americans.
hey danny, why not quit repeating a lie
those studies have been DEBUNKED
the harvard study, first made in a 2005 Health Affairs article, is at variance with four decades of economic research, including a finding that even large medical bills have no impact on family living standards.
The paper by David Himmelstein, Elizabeth Warren, Deborah Thorne, and Steffie Woolhandler was published as a Health Affairs web exclusive on February 5, 2005. The authors are strong proponents of government run health care.
The data comes from 1,250 personal bankruptcy cases, assumed to be representative of the almost 1.5 million households that filed for bankruptcy in 2001. The data on each bankruptcy were abstracted from court records and supplemented with 931 telephone interviews. The paper's conclusions about illnesses in households were based on medical interviews conducted with 391 people. The paper does not specify how those people were selected. It does say that Himmelstein and Woolhandler (H & W), both MDs, coded the diagnoses given by debtors into the categories used for the analysis.
The classifications used to determine a medical bankruptcy were odd. Only 28.3 percent of the sample cited self-reported illness or injury as a cause of bankruptcy. However, H & W managed to almost double that figure (to 54.5 percent) by counting the following as "illnesses":
•1. A birth or addition of a new family member
•2. A death in a family
•3. A drug or alcohol addiction
•4. Uncontrolled gambling
•5. Loss of at least 2 weeks of work-related income due to illness or injury by anyone in the household
•6. Out-of-pocket medical bills of $1,000 in the two years before filing by anyone in the household
•7. Mortgaging a home to pay medical bills.
In a 2005 article in the Northwestern University Law Review, Prof. Todd J. Zywicki called the $1,000 threshold for contributing medical debt "indefensible." That's an understatement. By H & W criteria, a bankruptcy with $50,000 in student loans and $1,001 in unpaid medical bills would be classified as a "medical bankruptcy." Moreover, the average U.S. household had out-of-pocket expenses of $2,182 in 2001!
In a 2006 review (gated) of the H & W study results in Health Affairs, David Dranove and Michael L. Millenson:
•Recalculate the medical bankruptcy rate using the data given in the H & W paper. They conclude that just 17 percent of the H & W sample "had medical expenditure bankruptcies," although it cannot be stated "with any degree of certainty whether medical spending was the most important cause of bankruptcy."
•Explain that "four decades of studies have addressed the bankruptcy-medical spending connection" and that the results from those studies are much closer to their 17 percent estimate than to the 54.5 percent estimates of H & W.
•Cite a 2002 Fay, Hurst, and White American Economic Review study, which found no statistical link between bankruptcies and health problems.
•Cite a 1999 Domowitz and Sartain Journal of Finance study, which found that high medical debt raised the probability of bankruptcy for the tiny proportion of the population that had high medical debt, but that at the margin, credit cards were the largest single contribution to bankruptcy.
Moreover, Helen Levy in an Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured working paper estimated the effect of being diagnosed with a serious new health condition, (cancer, diabetes, heart attack, chronic lung disease, or stroke) and found that household consumption "remains smooth" in the face of serious health shocks for both insured and uninsured households.
and YET:
A study by the Department of Justice examined more than 5,000 bankruptcy cases between 2000 and 2002. It found that 54% of bankruptcies involve no medical debt, and more than 90% have medical debt of less than $5,000. Even among the minority of bankruptcies that report medical debt, only a few have enough to cause personal bankruptcy.
Obamacare without a government option simply holds America hostage to the greedy healthcare companies... like the middle class is not hurting enough. The mandatory healthcare policy is like forcing everyone to buy a new car every year to support the auto industry. I pay $1,100 a month for my wife and myself - that's a car payment on a really nice car, but I feel better knowing that perhaps the CEO of United Healthcre can give himself another 1 billion dollar bonus.
Every other major Western civilization has free healthcare for it's citizens. Why couldn't Obama at least provide a buy-in to Medicare?
we've seen what a 'government option' is like...just look at the dept of health HORROR CLINICS
oh and its NEVER free.... as a taxpayer you cant afford singlepayer
singlepayer wont save you a dime.... but if you are a taxpayer you sure will be screwed
if the payer (government in this case) says the payment is xxx, yet the provider NEEDS yyy to cover all his over head, then its not just about a payment...we have many (some say as many as 1500) cost of living areas within the usa.... that's one of the key things to remember is that one size does not fit all
with UHC you cant GUARENTEE of QUALITY care (look at the health dept horror clinics)
you (the taxpayer) cant afford singlepayer aka uhc....unless we change the tax system
singlepayer ( total government funding(taxpayer) and total government control) is NOT what we need...not if we EXPECT the QUALITY of care
when you look at the COSTS of ACTUAL care (not insurance) and the OVERHEAD costs associated with the care..the cost would be astronomical to cover 320 million people
and lets look at the some other numbers
the ACTUAL cost just to help americans with Alzheimer's(forgive my spelling) is over 200 billion every year
and let's not forget: Obesity rates among OECD nations increased in recent years, with the highest rate in the U.S. at 34.3% -- which means one in 3 Americans is by definition obese.
number of americans getting cancer (new cases) per year 1.8 million for a total of 19 million people being treated (fighting) each year...each year at least 570,000 die from cancer
number of americans with heart disease: 26.2 million and of those..((Number of visits with heart disease as primary diagnosis: 16 million ))((Number of discharges with heart disease as first-listed diagnosis: 4.2 million))
number of americans in nursing homes: 2 million
More than 25 million Americans have significant vision loss.
(((hmmm more than 25 million americans are blind or going blind.....that's more than Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria COMBINED TOTAL population....)))
number of americans with diabetes: 26 million
number of americans with asthma: 20 million....Each day 11 Americans die from asthma.
while some of those may overlap...look at those numbers 19,26,25,26,20...that's 116 million with MAJOR health problem,,costly problems......we will ALWAYS be the largest spender in the world...we have the 3rd highest population in the world (next to china and India) and we have more people (total, not a percentage) with major problems than any other country in Europe.....I just showed you at least 116 million people with cancer, heart, blindness, diabetes, asthma.......that's more than France and great Britain COMBINED for their total populations.
most people (to include republicans) would support singlepayer....IF....
1. it wouldnt be like the CRAPCARE of the health department clinics (death traps)
2. and there was a fair way of funding it......replacing the personal income tax, the estate tax, the corporate tax with the fair tax (a consumption tax) is about the only way to fund it...but the liberals will never go for it
comparing costs to other countries....kinda apples to oranges
yes our cost are higher...but that is because EVERYTHING is higher
look at the second part of that slide checkup cost 59 (omg its double what it is in Canada)
so what are we saying we should FORCE docotrs and nurse to work for minimum wage. and have offices in huts
when you pay that doctor $59 ,, its not $59 dollars going into his pocket...there are lots of other COSTS
how are you going to control the cost of medical equipment(mri or x-ray machines, etc)??????most xray machine are made in Denmark
how are you going to control the cost of the rising electric bills the doctors/hospitals are facing????
how are you going to control the rising property tax/rent/mortgage that doctors face?????
how are you going to control the cost of supplies(gauze, plaster, silk, rubber, polystyrene( a oil product)?????especially some supplies that aren't even american
how are you going to control the cost of people salaries???? a maximum wage???
how they are going to control the employment costs for Doctors, nurses, technicians, hospital food operators, hospital linen cleaning service, custodial services, medical transcribers........are you going to 'nationalize' every profession that is even remotely connected to medicine????
how are they going to control malpractice INSURANCE COSTS?????
don't you get it... medicine (like anyother SERVICE) costs money,,(,money that our government doesn't have)
want to know A BIG REASON why its lower in those other countries.??? salaries.....a nurse in France(actually most of europe) makes about 1500-1800 a month(in us dollars)..that's 18-20000 a year.....meanwhile according to payscale.com the average Rn makes 40-78,000 in the usa
is that what you want??? do you want to have medical PROFESSIONALS be forced to work for nearly minimum wage
.............I would be all for single payer...except for two things that the "pro singlepayer" people cant answer..I want a GUARENTEE of QUALITY care (not health dept horror clinics)...and the COST (which the prosinglepayer people never address)
if you are a taxpayer...you cant afford singlepayer
Every other major Western civilization ( and then some) has a mandate for insurance or a contribution to a government sickness fund. Most of these countries require co-payments. Some have deductibles. No two countries do universal healthcare alike. Some countries rely on private insurers and some do not. Some own/operate hospitals and some do not.
There is no such thing as free heath care, anywhere.
Medicare is insurance and certainly not free. Most current beneficiaries paid into it their entire working lives. Medicare has been subsidized by general revenues and deficit spending all along. Medicare contains deductibles and co-pays. Many buy supplemental insurance to help pay for what Medicare does not.
Compared to what I pay, I'd gladly settle for a co-pay and deductible, since I am paying to get those now.
Medicare is paid for by tax revenues, and should provide at least basic or catastrophic care in the pre-retirement phase.
Obamacare without a government option simply holds America hostage to the greedy healthcare companies... like the middle class is not hurting enough. The mandatory healthcare policy is like forcing everyone to buy a new car every year to support the auto industry. I pay $1,100 a month for my wife and myself - that's a car payment on a really nice car, but I feel better knowing that perhaps the CEO of United Healthcre can give himself another 1 billion dollar bonus.
Every other major Western civilization has free healthcare for it's citizens. Why couldn't Obama at least provide a buy-in to Medicare?
here is UHC in France
The Poor Get the Worst Health Care.
Translated Monday 29 October 2007, by Gene Zbikowski
An edifying INSEE study confirms that the poorest households suffer discrimination in access to health care, following a study on health care conducted
The least one can say is that the INSEE study entitled “The Health of the Very Poor,” which was published yesterday, comes at just the right moment. Right in the middle of the debate on the social security budget bill in the French National Assembly, right in the middle of the battle against medical co-payments, the day after the demonstration by medical students, the health care study conducted between 2002-2003 with a sample of 40,000 people confirms the discrimination in health care access suffered by the poorest French households.
french UHC....going bankrupt
german UHC...going bankrupt
greek UHC.....going bankrupt
british healthcare.....severe cutbacks, on the verge of failing
canadian UHC....PRIVITIZING....In Canada, a move toward a private healthcare option -- latimes.com
swiss health care......Swiss health care is predominantly private. Individuals are required to buy insurance and almost all of them do. Private companies compete to provide insurance, and there are subsidies for lower income buyers. The insurance is individually owned, personal and portable.
Despite competition, choice, private ownership and portability, the Swiss system is still very bureaucratic – perhaps as much as or more so than our own. It has mandated benefits, price controls on providers and other regulations that make it hard for entrepreneurs to solve problems.
swedish health care....For decades, Sweden has been the global bastion of socialized health care. In many ways, it still is. But as countries the world over struggle with rapidly changing technologies, spiking medical costs, rising demands for service with noncorresponding appetites for increased fees or taxation, Sweden is increasingly turning to the private sector to reduce the burden on a health care system at risk of being crushed under its own weight.
"Many of the developments in the last 15 years have been about going from a government-funded system to a more open system that includes the private sector," says Dr. Birger Forsberg, a professor of international health at the Karolinksa Institute medical school who also advises Stockholm on health care policies.
The Scandanavian model of a welfare state built on high taxation is known the world over. In fact, Sweden's success at adopting a public–private hybrid was cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 2005 decision to strike down prohibitions against private health care insurance in Quebec, saying that countries such as Sweden and Germany, that allow private insurance, have successfully delivered medical services that are superior to and more affordable than services available in Canada
My prediction is that the Republicans in Congress will one day "kill Obamacare" by bringing in true universal healthcare. They'll call it "Patriotcare" or "Boehnercare" or something. Well played, GOP, well played.
And the only way they would be brought to the grown ups table with the scenario you describe is to vindictively kill the ACA. That and to try and earn accolades with the low information base who votes for them.
It's sad that they have brought politics down to the 4th grade level, but if that is what it takes to make healthcare affordable, then that is what it takes.
Force the wingnuts to play ball or forever be known as the party of NO, and nothing else.
And the only way they would be brought to the grown ups table with the scenario you describe is to vindictively kill the ACA. That and to try and earn accolades with the low information base who votes for them.
It's sad that they have brought politics down to the 4th grade level, but if that is what it takes to make healthcare affordable, then that is what it takes.
Force the wingnuts to play ball or forever be known as the party of NO, and nothing else.
Well played Democrats, well played.
its already been proven the dumbocrats are the party of no
400 bills dirty harry reid said no, to even a vote
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