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" If they (Republicans) think they can just blame Democrats, sorry, that won't fly."
Is Trump purposely sabotaging Obama Care based on partisan issues? " Let it be a disaster because we can blame that on the Democrats. Politically it would be a great solution."
Has Trump greatly exaggerated the collapse of Obama Care? 20 million will be uninsured if Obama care is repealed. Yes, Obama Care has problems but it only effects 6% of the Americans who buy insurance on the open market.
What do the people want and does it matter? Wouldn't passing a Republican bill with only a 15% approval rate be political suicide? Why not just fix what the people want? Obama Care is more popular then ever. Why can't the Democrats and Republicans work together for our best interests?
Read Politico's article Is Trump Sabotaging Obamacare? It's a great article.
Hmm let's go with your head of lettuce/cabbage theory there chance...
Paid 10 cents per head of lettuce/cabbage picked.
I'll do it.
200 heads of lettuce per hour for 10 hours per day for 5 days a week, comes out to 1000 dollars, for an illegal who isn't paying tax on that... that 1000 can afford a good apartment.
Here's the math. 200 heads per hour x 10 hours x 5 days a week x .10 = 1000.
If I get sick and save my money in a shoe box in a closet that's good to cover medical expenses... just have to claim I lost my wallet and ID or left it home but have cash on hand and I'll pay cash...
Chances are the guy I rent from will hook me up with some section 8 and heap to pay for electric and propane too.
Hell with that 1000 per week I'll send that money back to my home country where the exchange rate is favorable to the dollar and work a couple years picking veggies and go retire a millionaire in Mexico
Look... on average, across the whole of the USA, we consume $10,000 per person per year in health care expenses. Some estimates are as high as $12,000 per person on average.
Therefore, logic dictates that on average health care INSURANCE (Obamacare or anything else) must cost at least $10,000 to $12,000 per person per year plus administrative fees plus profit for insurance companies.
Neither the pre-Obamacare situation, or Obamacare, or Trumpcare address the underlying issue that health care just costs too damn much in this country. Whine about the insurance all you like, but that isn't the problem. The problem is that health care costs too damn much, so insurance for healthcare must therefore also cost too damn much plus more for administration and profit.
The cost of health care has about quintupled since 1970. ... The average 1960 worker spent ten days’ worth of their yearly paycheck on health insurance; the average modern worker spends sixty days’ worth of it, a sixth of their entire earnings. US health care costs about four times as much as equivalent health care in other First World countries.
Just where in the hell is all that health care money going?
Medical doctors typically have a nice income, but they are not getting rich.
Hospital administrators typically also have a very nice income, but they are not getting rich (no yachts or private jets.)
Nurses are not getting rich.
Respiratory therapists are not getting rich.
X-Ray techs are not getting rich.
Physical therapists are not getting rich.
Health insurance companies profits are regulated under Obamacare so they are not getting rich, although senior executives make a lot of money -- but they don't own yachts or private jets.
Soooo..... where is all the money going?
And this is especially strange because we expect that improving technology and globalization ought to cut costs. In 1983, the first mobile phone cost $4,000 – about $10,000 in today’s dollars. It was also a gigantic piece of crap. Today you can get a much better phone for $100. This is the right and proper way of the universe. It’s why we fund scientists, why startups go public, and why we pay technical innovators the big bucks.
Patients can now schedule their appointments online with a smartphone; doctors can send prescriptions through the fax or via a secure email system, pharmacies can keep track of medication histories on centralized computer systems that interface with the cloud, nurses get automatic reminders when they’re giving two drugs with a potential interaction, insurance companies accept payment through credit cards -----
----- and all of this costs ten times as much as it did in the days of IBM punch cards and secretaries who did calculations by hand with a manual crank adding machine.
And it’s actually even worse than this. A lot of medical services have decreased in quality. For women who give birth in the hospital, the standard length of stay was 8 to 14 days in the 1950s but declined to less than 2 days by today. The doctors I talk to say this isn’t because modern women are healthier, it’s because they kick them out as soon as possible in order to cut costs. Historic records of hospital care generally describe leisurely convalescence periods and making sure somebody felt absolutely well before letting them go; this seems bizarre to anyone who has participated in a modern hospital, where the mantra is to kick people out as soon as they’re “stable” i.e. not in acute crisis. We only half-joke about drive-by childbirth.
I don’t know why more people don’t just come out and say “LOOK, REALLY OUR MAIN PROBLEM IS THAT ALL THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS COST TEN TIMES AS MUCH AS THEY USED TO FOR NO REASON, PLUS THEY SEEM TO BE GOING DOWN IN QUALITY, AND NOBODY KNOWS WHY, AND WE’RE MOSTLY JUST DESPERATELY FLAILING AROUND LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS HERE.” State that clearly, and a lot of political debates take on a different light.
Important things such as health care, education, roads & bridges, subways & other public infrastructure cost 10 times as much, 10 times more than they used to and 10 times more than in other countries.
It's not going to wages.
It's not going to profits.
So where is it going?
The unavoidable answer: The number of people it takes to produce these goods and services is skyrocketing. Labor productivity -- quality adjusted output per number of people involved in the entire process -- declined by a factor of 10 in these areas. It pretty much has to be that: if the money is not going to profits or to to each employee in the form of higher wages, then it must be going to the number of employees.
In other words, it is going to administrative bloat.
There are 2.5 people handling insurance claims for every doctor. And that's just at the medical practices & hospitals; the insurance companies have armies of people working on the claims as well.
Having a government sponsored single-payer system is a radical idea -- but it does not address the root cause of administrative bloat. Imagine how many people are involved at doctor's offices, hospitals, and other health care providers who do not take care of patients but are employed merely to process the damn paperwork. With a government single payer system, those employees still have jobs. Now, imagine all the employees at insurance companies who process health insurance forms & policies and whatnot. With a government sponsored single-payer system, the Government will need to hire about that number of people -- and then add another 20% to 30% for government inefficiencies.
At the end of the day, government single payer just doesn't solve the problem.
There are some areas that are improving. The for-profit field of LASIK eye surgery is a great example. Except in very rare cases, health insurance does not cover Lasik. So Ophthalmologists who specialize in LASIK just don't have that administrative bloat -- they don't have armies of clerks skilled in how to code insurance forms so as to maximize the payment from the provider. The end result is the quality of LASIK has improved dramatically while the price of LASIK has plummeted. Ditto for many cosmetic surgical procedures such as breast implants, breast reduction, butt lifts & implants, chin lifts & tummy tucks. Quality has gone up while costs have gone down.
It is in the other section of medical care -- the section where insurance companies and the government are involved -- that's where the bloat occurs.
Look... on average, across the whole of the USA, we consume $10,000 per person per year in health care expenses. Some estimates are as high as $12,000 per person on average.
Therefore, logic dictates that on average health care INSURANCE (Obamacare or anything else) must cost at least $10,000 to $12,000 per person per year plus administrative fees plus profit for insurance companies.
Neither the pre-Obamacare situation, or Obamacare, or Trumpcare address the underlying issue that health care just costs too damn much in this country. Whine about the insurance all you like, but that isn't the problem. The problem is that health care costs too damn much, so insurance for healthcare must therefore also cost too damn much plus more for administration and profit.
The cost of health care has about quintupled since 1970. ... The average 1960 worker spent ten days’ worth of their yearly paycheck on health insurance; the average modern worker spends sixty days’ worth of it, a sixth of their entire earnings. US health care costs about four times as much as equivalent health care in other First World countries.
Just where in the hell is all that health care money going?
Medical doctors typically have a nice income, but they are not getting rich.
Hospital administrators typically also have a very nice income, but they are not getting rich (no yachts or private jets.)
Nurses are not getting rich.
Respiratory therapists are not getting rich.
X-Ray techs are not getting rich.
Physical therapists are not getting rich.
Health insurance companies profits are regulated under Obamacare so they are not getting rich, although senior executives make a lot of money -- but they don't own yachts or private jets.
Soooo..... where is all the money going?
And this is especially strange because we expect that improving technology and globalization ought to cut costs. In 1983, the first mobile phone cost $4,000 – about $10,000 in today’s dollars. It was also a gigantic piece of crap. Today you can get a much better phone for $100. This is the right and proper way of the universe. It’s why we fund scientists, why startups go public, and why we pay technical innovators the big bucks.
Patients can now schedule their appointments online with a smartphone; doctors can send prescriptions through the fax or via a secure email system, pharmacies can keep track of medication histories on centralized computer systems that interface with the cloud, nurses get automatic reminders when they’re giving two drugs with a potential interaction, insurance companies accept payment through credit cards -----
----- and all of this costs ten times as much as it did in the days of IBM punch cards and secretaries who did calculations by hand with a manual crank adding machine.
And it’s actually even worse than this. A lot of medical services have decreased in quality. For women who give birth in the hospital, the standard length of stay was 8 to 14 days in the 1950s but declined to less than 2 days by today. The doctors I talk to say this isn’t because modern women are healthier, it’s because they kick them out as soon as possible in order to cut costs. Historic records of hospital care generally describe leisurely convalescence periods and making sure somebody felt absolutely well before letting them go; this seems bizarre to anyone who has participated in a modern hospital, where the mantra is to kick people out as soon as they’re “stable” i.e. not in acute crisis. We only half-joke about drive-by childbirth.
I don’t know why more people don’t just come out and say “LOOK, REALLY OUR MAIN PROBLEM IS THAT ALL THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS COST TEN TIMES AS MUCH AS THEY USED TO FOR NO REASON, PLUS THEY SEEM TO BE GOING DOWN IN QUALITY, AND NOBODY KNOWS WHY, AND WE’RE MOSTLY JUST DESPERATELY FLAILING AROUND LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS HERE.” State that clearly, and a lot of political debates take on a different light.
Important things such as health care, education, roads & bridges, subways & other public infrastructure cost 10 times as much, 10 times more than they used to and 10 times more than in other countries.
It's not going to wages.
It's not going to profits.
So where is it going?
The unavoidable answer: The number of people it takes to produce these goods and services is skyrocketing. Labor productivity -- quality adjusted output per number of people involved in the entire process -- declined by a factor of 10 in these areas. It pretty much has to be that: if the money is not going to profits or to to each employee in the form of higher wages, then it must be going to the number of employees.
It's all about administrative bloat.
There are 2.5 people handling insurance claims for every doctor. And that's just at the medical practices & hospitals; the insurance companies have armies of people working on the claims as well.
Having a government sponsored single-payer system is a radical idea -- but it does not address the root cause of administrative bloat. Imagine how many people are involved at doctor's offices, hospitals, and other health care providers who do not take care of patients but are employed merely to process the damn paperwork. With a government single payer system, those employees still have jobs. Now, imagine all the employees at insurance companies who process health insurance forms & policies and whatnot. With a government sponsored single-payer system, the Government will need to hire about that number of people -- and then add another 20% to 30% for government inefficiencies.
At the end of the day, government single payer just doesn't solve the problem.
There are some areas that are improving. The for-profit field of LASIK eye surgery is a great example. Except in very rare cases, health insurance does not cover Lasik. So Ophthalmologists who specialize in LASIK just don't have that administrative bloat -- they don't have armies of clerks skilled in how to code insurance forms so as to maximize the payment from the provider. The end result is the quality of LASIK has improved dramatically while the price of LASIK has plummeted. Ditto for many cosmetic surgical procedures such as breast implants, breast reduction, butt lifts & implants, chin lifts & tummy tucks. Quality has gone up while costs have gone down.
It is in the other section of medical care -- the section where insurance companies and the government are involved -- that's where the bloat occurs.
You got it!
The same applies to COLLEGE go look at the teacher parking lot, and then look at the administrators reserved spaces.
Yup. Administrators.
Same with hospitals. Look at the reserved for spaces and see what's parked there...
Look at the EPI pen ordeal...
Raise the price on that not for a new and improved formula or delivery method... but for the admins/CEO's can rake in 10s of millions of dollars per year salaries...
It was never designed to be a "maintenance free program", it requires administrative maintenance...
Noting in this world lives without maintenance, and to expect it to, is the acts of a fool !!!! When it was established it was known and stated, that it was not perfect and would need modifications and amendments as well as other service related works.
Trump is Killing ACA and the blame is 100% his and 100% the Republicans. Any and all damages is to be blamed on Trump and Republicans 100%
He thinks he's being his standard racist imbecilic self, and all he is doing is damaging American lives. Everything about ACA that become more troubled, is and does belong to Trump. He can't escape that no matter how much he flaps his lips or how many over ripe Republican stand behind him.
He is so desperate to not pay taxes, and push some "give the wealthy more money", until he will damage anything and anyone in the process.
One thing is Certain. ACA was working when he got there, and just like a car that runs and need a tune up and oil change, and you don't do it, and the car breaks down... IT'S YOUR FAULT.
Because you already knew it needed maintenance.
IF ACA Fails, It's Trump's Fault!!!!
Nah....it's not....BO owns this one....he brought it...now we are in it.....it is and continues to fail. Why? companies are pulling out leaving folks either stranded or with only one choice and as we all know, when you have one choice, prices go UP.....soooooooo, if Trump vanished into that democratic wishful thinking mist today, you would still have a ACA going bankrupt.....and it's not too big to fail this time.....
Kids, like when we were young, all think they are going to live forever so they opt for the fine....besides, if they do come down with anything major they have no money to pay for it and bankrupting a kid out of college with 90,000 in loan debt is merciful....they don't care....you have no leverage on them...not like they are going to lose a house or car.
Lose a Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Undisclosed other sure but, those can be replaced with 1 or 2 trips to the local watering hole, former forgotten in days....sure.......again, no leverage......
It's a flawed system, your guy brought it on in the hopes of gaining even more votes, was caught on tape knowing it was full of holes, and is now watching ACA going down faster than a $5 hooker in Bangkok.....
No, it's over. Whether or not the Republicans can do anything meaningful is doubtful as many Senators have poor states and what's her name from WVa is NEVER going to vote something that hurts 50% of the residents in that state (oddly enough, she has no problem drilling the other half).
Until America wakes up and realizes that if you WANT social medicine you have to get those that WANT it to realize THEY TOO have to pay for it....and by that I mean, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM and NO ONE gets a $30 premium....try $150/month and go from there.
That and you would have to reward all sorts of competition from any pharmacom on the planet, raise deductibles and dispense 80% of the healthcare through the doc in the box clinics and MAYBE you could pull it off.
Oh, and tort reform...the only ones that are going to cry are the lawyers who got into that feedbag too late and no one really likes them anyway...save the new up and coming ambulance chaser from you pick the city law school....nice....
Everyone remembers exactly who forced that crap down their throats. Every single person in this country knows, for a fact, it was the Dems who forced people in to this. Who forced people off of the insurance that they had and liked. Who forced people to buy overpriced bs and caused many doctors to cut out. Insurance companies were cutting out WELL before Trump ever got elected.
Everyone remembers. No one is going to forget. Not a soul is going to forget who said, multiple times: "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period." No one is going to forget who said, "We have to pass it to see what's in it."
NO ONE is going to forget. No matter how much rewriting of history the left tries to do. No matter how many times the left repeats this lie, NO ONE is going to forget.
You see, everyone remembers how hard it hit their pockets when they were already struggling through the crap economy provided courtesy of idiot Obama. Everyone remembers not being able to afford certain things. Everyone remembers not being able to do certain things because of this stupid ACA. Everyone remembers the prices going up, and up, and up, and up, and up.
The Dems designed it to fail. Everyone knows this. The Dems thought they were going to retain power. Everyone knows this. The Dems wanted single payer. Everyone knows this. ACA was meant to fail. Everyone knows this.
The ACA, the cost, the bloat, the failure, all of it....every. last. bit. of that trainwreck is all, completely, 100% on the Dems. Every last word in that 20,000 pages. Every comma, every period, every footnote, every title, all of it. ALL of it is on the Dems.
Everyone remembers because empty pocketbooks speak far louder than all the crying and incessantly repeating "It's the Republicans fault" bs that the left has been, is, and will be doing. The left will never, ever speak louder than people's hard earned money.
You never get that. You all never understand that. You will continue to fail because of it.
No matter how much protesting you do that the ACA is all on the Dems, every bit of it, the rest of the country will tell you, the failure of the ACA is ALL on the Dems, only the Dems, and no one but the Dems.
Then he has to act with something meaningful and not these stupid Republican proposals that are Obamacare light. He was a supporter of single payer, what happened to that?
He doesn't have to do anything but throw that stinky democrat only passed crap law back at them and say fix it or I defund it
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