The Government can't even drive a train-and you want to turn Health Care over to them?

[Weichert]

Originally Posted by pknopp

E.R.s aren't going to close. Sheesh.

How do you think they are funded?

With no funding, they close.

More than that they do not provide comprehensive medical care. No on-going anything for any medical problem. They will refer you to a doctor for any kind of illness that requires extended treatment.

You are deluding yourself if you think ERs are the solution.

[UrbanAdventurer]

Actually it’s Amtrak who can’t even drive a train but I see where you’re going with this and would say you’re not wrong.

[Oklazona Bound]

Originally Posted by Weichert

How do you think they are funded?

With no funding, they close.

More than that they do not provide comprehensive medical care. No on-going anything for any medical problem. They will refer you to a doctor for any kind of illness that requires extended treatment.

You are deluding yourself if you think ERs are the solution.

I believe the best solution is offering catastrophic private insurance that kicks in after the first $10K or $20K or even higher and offers a yearly doctors checkups. Nothing else. If someone cannot pay the deductible put them on a payment plan or take it out of their tax refund. One of the selling points on Obamacare was to keep people from going bankrupt because of a medical emergency. This would solve that.

About 12 years ago when I did not have a plan with the spouse I got use very high deductible coverage for about $100 a month each. I only wanted it in case some horrible thing happened that would cost several hundreds thousands to deal with.

All prescriptions are paid the patient and get their costs down like in Canada and Mexico. Really poor people get some sort of waiver.

For expensive surgery fly people to India or other low cost country to get it done. If wealthy people like in Europe do this why not everyone else.

If someone wants something more, they can pay out of pocket.

You don't need to socialize the whole thing to make it work. You just need to think outside the box a bit. I also think that people who smoke, drink or do drugs and have health issues because of doing so in excess should pay for that stupidity. Not myself. Perhaps doing so might cause a societal change that actually gets people more proactive about their health.

Regarding ER's. With or without insurance all people not in very serious shape have to be forced to lower cost clinics staffed with a nurse. No exceptions. Get the visits down in cost, say less than $50.

[ChiGeekGuest]

Originally Posted by lvmensch

is partially government funded yet operated and managed as a for-profit corporation.[1]

This is one of the problems with the 3 or 4 decade old ideology of 'privatizing government'. Some folks seem to believe it's the only way to solve problems ~ a fanatastical panacea, so to speak.

There's still much talk of privatizing Freddie & Fannie Mac, despite the fact that it was the fully private segment of the market that caused millions of foreclosures & brought down the entire financial system.

Privatize Social Security, & Medicare, & Medicaid, & so on.

Then, of course, the idea that's being played out in our current debacle ~ operating & managing government as a for-profit corporation. Cui bono? (literally "for whose benefit?") It's worth asking yourself, who profits?