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Are you somehow unaware that at least the UK denies medical care to those with a BMI of 30 or above, or if they are smokers?
They can pay themselves, or try to find a supplemental private-sector insurance policy that will cover them. I posted the link to the article earlier in this thread.
To say that the entire county denies medical care to the obese is just lies. At best your statement is a severe exaggeration.
Some of the NHS trusts deny a handful of procedures for obese people or smokers, yes.
People... Meet the VA! And the death panels with them and medicare.
So sorry to break the news to you. We are all going to die.
Nearly 50 countries have Universal Healthcare and no two countries do it alike.
Some rely entirely on public insurance and hospitals.
Some rely entirely on private insurance and hospitals.
Most are a blend of both.
Some require employer contributions and some do not.
Some require co- pays and some do not.
Some regulate healthcare worker compensation and some do not.
Most negotiate the price of meds.
All have a public mandate for insurance and all subside the cost for low income and unemployed. Preexisting conditions are covered.
Nearly every country is pulling their hair out to keep pace with the evolution of healthcare. Diagnosis that used to be a ner certain death sentence are now treatable and there is a price tag for this.
75% of the US adult population is overweight- obese and substantially more vulnerable to Diabetes, Heart a Disease, Stroke, Joint Deterioration and some Cancers. We have government picking up the tab for " My 600 Pound Life" ers who are on SSDI and Medicaid who are enabled by their families.
If US people were to magically normalize their weight, the demand for heathcare would substantially declin, and thus so would the cost of heathcare. The federal government could pick up the entire tab for healthcare and come out ahead.
Back to reality. Only fair thing is to base premiums on waist size. The greater the girth, the higher the premium. This includes Veterans, seniors and those on Medicaid. If the premium is unaffordable, it sucks to be you. Take responsibility for your own health or do without including being denied access to the ER.
Any scheme other than taking personal responsibility, to manage the cost of healthcare is doomed.
While there are no details, Trump has promised to " replace Obamacare with something wonderful that will take care of everybody and the government is going to pay for it".
Like with nearly all nominee promises and intentions, it is necessary for Congress to approve.
No certainty that Congress will play ball even when the majority party favors the POTUS.
No POTUS follows through on all campaign promises and intentions.
It parallels what is happening with gun control. They'd like to just ban all guns and remove them from the citizens' hands, but it would be political suicide, so they're playing the long game and Death by 1000 Cuts. One or two more Supreme Court justices put in place by a Democratic President and they'll be able to speed things up.
The Constitution is clear.
Presidents nominate.
The Senate either confirms or rejects the nomination.
Reagan nominated Scalia. A Democrat majority Senate confirmed.
For those that think single payer will be so wonderful....please bear in mind that older people on that wonderful single payer Medicare--
1. Generally have a back-up insurance plan to cover everything that Medicare doesn't, and
2. Medicare works because the low reimbursement is balanced out by overcharging the regular insurance companies.
You take away the regular insurance companies and you end up with people needing a $1000 procedure that Medicare-for-all reimburses at $209 and wonder why doctors will be leaving in droves.
Physician reimbursements are a small percentage of Medicare's costs. It's also the area of most Medicare fraud.
Physicians who administer certain drugs ( mostly Cancer related) also receive a percentage of the cost of the drug.
There is no shortage of legacy and new private and for profit Cancer Treatment centers throughout the US and the majority of their patients are on Medicare. Increasingly, they have taken to TV to advertize to national audiences. Reasonable to assume they are not going broke.
Medicare, by law, pays the hospital's cost, including overhead.
Medicare reimbursements vary state to state and within state by region.
Costs are a function of the competitiveness or lack thereof, of a local healthcare market, combined with the number of claims within a regional market, an indication of the health or lack thereof of a population.
While medical outcomes are generally compariable, the hospital experience in the US is often substantially different than elsewhere. One is not likely to find valet parking, lattes in the lobby, TVs on every wall, room service, massage, therapy dogs and private rooms. These swell but unnecessary things are a part of a hospital's overhead. In some countries, like Germany, there is a surcharge for bed linens and towels. Patients often bring their own.
Supplimental healthcare insurance is widely available and used in those countries with nationalized healthcare systems and/ or majority public hospitals. These plans pay for what their public insurance does not.
While I do not doubt your sincerity, I do doubt the wisdom of instituting a single-payer.
The underlying problem that Obama never bothered to solve first: Escalating healthcare costs. It's been forever since the Reader's Digest pointed out some of the ugliest examples of overcharging. Nothing has changed since though. It was $15 per Tylenol pill. Now it costs more. It costs $8 for a box of tissues (billed as mucus recovery system). Now it costs more. A pair of sterile gloves cost $53 per pair. Now it costs more. The little plastic cup they put your meds in cost $10 each. Now it costs more. The use of the Blood Pressure cuff (which ended up getting reused anyways) was $20 per use. Now it costs more. An alcohol swab cost $23 each. Now it costs more. The same prescription drugs made by the same RX manufacturers cost vastly more in the USA than they do in Europe and Canada.
Yes, those costs are billed to the private insurance companies and not the patients. And yes, single payer programs like Medicare can refuse to pay the ripoff prices. When they do that, hospitals and clinics just refuse to take Medicare. The solution? You have to do something to stop them from overcharging insurance companies like that. And when they are no longer overcharging insurance companies, then you can start doing what ACA was intended to do: Getting insurance companies to stop charging such insanely high premiums, so that lower income Americans can actually afford them.
First, get the average costs of healthcare down to European levels and then talking about single payer systems starts to make sense. If you don't solve that first, you get exactly what we're seeing with Obamacare: Insurance companies actually losing money and ultimately being forced to withdraw from the exchanges. Make it a federally owned system and that system will turn into a giant black hole sucking down money faster and faster.
I can tell none of the Anti-ACA idiots on here are working in healthcare field.
First,the plan was right when it said everyone must purchase health insurance.
Why? Do you know how many people think ER medicine is "free"?
These are people that CAN afford it btw....i do not know why people think health insurance is not important.
So you can pay a $600 car payment but cannot something dealing with your HEALTH!
Anyway,i hope this does evolve into single payer......too many people think healthcare is free.
I am an advocate of Universal Healthcare which is not limited to Single Payer.
No two countries do Universal Healthcare alike and some rely completely on private insurance including for the elderly. Insurers are not allowed to discriminate by pre-existing conditions or age. The 2- year old pays the same premium as a 79 year old.
The common foundation however, is the individual mandate and subsidy for low/ no income people.
There are many factors that make the US different, population size, geography and that 75% of adults are overweight- obese. And therefore are substantially more vulnerable to otherwise preventable diseases/ conditions.
While I do not doubt your sincerity, I do doubt the wisdom of instituting a single-payer.
I believe the whole point of single payer is that we can negotiate, from a very, very strong position, for all the people covered by the single payer. Which will certainly be the vast majority of people in the country.
Those healthcare professionals that don't like it, can try and play in the privately insured game. It will be the very best of them I'm sure. It won't be big enough to steal all the doctors, nurses and hospitals in existence away from the public pool, by a long shot.
You'll get what you pay and that's hardly socialism.
Last edited by TKO; 08-12-2016 at 01:38 PM..
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