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IMO everyone needs to have a catastrophic health insurance plan only. Otherwise, everyone should be able to pay for out of their own pocket for an annual physical... and for the low income people, that cost could be on a sliding scale fee. I don't see the need for any health insurance coverage to include "free" annual physicals.
And there should be some sort of regulation as to how much a patient should be charged for a physical and tests such as mammograms and colonoscopies.
If I ever need an x-ray, I used to tell one of my former veterinarians that I would go to him for it since he only charged $75 to take an x-ray for my cat.
And can we please place a cap on insurance malpractice payouts? Winning a malpractice suit should not be akin as winning a lottery. And instead of going through lawyers, could we set up an arbitration board instead? Let's get rid of the ambulance chasing lawyers.
You want government to regulate the price of healthcare?
Think the purpose of an included annual medical exam and age- appropriate Can screening is prevention and early detection.
Think most people would prefer a Radiologist to read an X- Ray or MRI scan. This function will likely eventually be offshored to India.
Malpractice insurance is a state issue often built into state constitutions. Unlikely, fed will touch it.
FYI a 5' 3" female weighing 170 lbs or more doesn't make the cut. Neither does a 5' 9" male weighing 205+ lbs.
Average height/weight for American adults:
Female: 5' 3.8"/166.2 lbs
Male: 5' 9.3"/195.5 lbs
The US average is very close to the over 30 BMI cutoff for all routine surgery.
Why not? If the tax payers are paying for everyone's healthcare there should be limits on how much a person who chooses to make bad healthcare decisions can suck out of the system.
It's not a bottomless pit of money.
I'd rather see more spent on prenatal care, cancer screening, mammograms etc. or to keep a sick newborn alive than pay for drug addict's repeated treatments.
Oh, and NO sex change, gender re-assignment or whatever they end up calling it surgery. No way, Jose.
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 that don't like it, can play in the privately insured game. 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.
My advice: Avoid making it a federal program at all costs. Federal social programs are riddled with fraud, waste and "once size fits all" scenarios that don't actually fit the majority of Americans. They take the worst-case scenarios and apply it to everyone. Run the programs at government levels closer to where the people are and let the feds just police things to make sure there is no discrimination or fraud or waste. The feds do a decent job of stuff like that. They just suck horribly at policing themselves.
I'm all for getting rid of Obamacare and the idea of single payer as long as we get rid of Medicare too. Seniors do not pay for the medical benefits they receive.
Few seniors have actually paid for their Medicare benefits. According to an Urban Institute estimate, the typical retired couple paid $122,000 in lifetime Medicare taxes but can expect to receive benefits worth $387,000.
(All figures are adjusted for inflation.)
Plus seniors get Medicare Part D and one in five get Medicaid. End it all. If government health care is bad, then all recipients should give it up including seniors. I'm tired of seniors complaining about Obamacare while they happily take my tax dollars. Give seniors a voucher or tell them once they've spent their contribution, they are done. A heart bypass, maybe a hip replacement and they can go shop for a policy like the rest of us do.
" they can go shop for a policy like the rest of us do"
Well, no they can't because insurers ( most of whom are for profit publicly traded corporations) decline to be the primary insurer of elderly healthcare risks
Private insurers declined to write depositor insurance for banks - government stepped in.
Private insurers declined to write flood insurance - government stepped in.
Private insurers declined to write crop insurance risks- government stepped in.
Private insurers declined to write healthcare/ hospital insurance for the elderly- government stepped in.
Private insurers have been exiting the Individual Plan Market for 20+/- years. State governments are then put into a position of " doing something" and states provide financial incentives for insurers to stay in the market.
Private insurers declined to cover pre-existing conditions - government stepped in.
Looks like a pattern to me. The private sector opts out. The people demand. Government steps in.
IMO everyone needs to have a catastrophic health insurance plan only. Otherwise, everyone should be able to pay for out of their own pocket for an annual physical... and for the low income people, that cost could be on a sliding scale fee. I don't see the need for any health insurance coverage to include "free" annual physicals.
And there should be some sort of regulation as to how much a patient should be charged for a physical and tests such as mammograms and colonoscopies.
If I ever need an x-ray, I used to tell one of my former veterinarians that I would go to him for it since he only charged $75 to take an x-ray for my cat.
And can we please place a cap on insurance malpractice payouts? Winning a malpractice suit should not be akin as winning a lottery. And instead of going through lawyers, could we set up an arbitration board instead? Let's get rid of the ambulance chasing lawyers.
One of the biggest problems here: The self-appointed protectors of the little guy -- the Democrats -- are getting a crap-ton of campaign contributions from ambulance chasers. Ambulance chasers need big payouts in order to get stupidly rich and continue making huge campaign contributions to the Democratic Party.
You'll have to rely 100% on the Republican Party to put any kind of cap on malpractice lawsuits, and it'll have to happen in the face of a massive storm of "You're trying to hurt poor people when evil rich doctors screw up and ruin their lives!! How dare you!!" from the Dems, when in reality, they're just protecting their own $$$. It's close to impossible to pass such legislation for that very reason.
Seems the American people want their cake and affordable healthcare, too.
75% of the US adults are overweight- obese and create an incessant demand for heathcare that otherwise would not exist.
Why should healthcare providers/ governments do anything for those who chose to not take responsibility for their own health?
That is exactly correct. The obese and/or smokers in the UK who are denied routine surgery become eligible for surgery again once they reduce their BMI to below 30 and/or quit smoking, whichever are applicable.
That is exactly correct. The obese and/or smokers in the UK who are denied routine surgery become eligible for surgery again once they reduce their BMI to below 30 and/or quit smoking, whichever are applicable.
Do they make drug addicts kick their habits before treating them? Or is that not PC?
American liberals are SO clueless, it's a national embarrassment.
This only applies to certain surgeries.
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