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What happens to the "free government clinics" when they get bombarded with the same malpractice lawsuits that plague the entire industry?
I'd like to say that "free" health care is going to bankrupt the country, but we already are broke.
Read the Patriot Act. There won't be any more lawsuits. the medical establishment will be protected so therefore, the incentive to provide good quality will go downhill in some respects.
The FARM bills in Congress may prevent you from even growing your own organic food in your own backyard. HR 875 will to establish a huge regulatory agnecy like "Homeland Secuity" to police food production -- even small scale --- for "your safety". It could criminalize organic farming!
It could force all of us to use genetically engineered seeds in our backyard gardens which would be a BOON to Monsanto and big AGRA business and the death nell to small local farmers. By the way, eating GMOs (genetically modified organisms) over a long period of time is injurious to your health. There are about 65 known health problems that develop such as bleeding ulcers and more.
Right now those of us that shop in regular grocery stores are buying and eating food that is genetically engineered without even knowing it because there is no LABELING requirement. BIG AGRA and BIG FOOD have told the FDA that they don't want to "alarm" Americans by being honest about what is in their food. The only way you can be sure that your food is safe is by buying food that is labled "NO Gentically engineered organisms" or "NO GMOs".
Imagine living in a "free" country where the federal government that was supposed to have a very small role in people's lives now won't even let its people have access to healthful organic foods -- or even grow their own!!!! Imagine being forced to eat food that WILL MAKE YOU SICK GUARANTEED -- EVENTUALLY. THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS WHERE WE ARE HEADED --UNLESS WE TAKE ACTION TO STOP IT and it IS NOT TOO LATE.
At www.truefoodnow.org under URGENT ACTIONS you can alert your elected officials on these issues and tell them to oppose legislation sponsored to increase the use of this DANGEROUS biotech technology.
As always you can contact your reps at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov
and tell them NO to food safety bills that put more restrictions on small and local farmers and or that INCREASE pesticide use or INCREASE use of genetic engineering in farmings or that put more of a burden on organic farmers and last but certainly not least ---NO to the OBAMA Healthcare package!
Not true. The United States spends 17% of its GDP on health care, which is the most in the world. However, we are the only industrialized country that has uninsured, and we have 47 million of them. Countries like Canada, UK and France have single-payer systems and they spend a much lower percentage of their GDP's on healthcare and they insure everyone. All of these 3 countries health care systems have a better overall performance than ours, according to the World Health Organization. The reason we are so inefficient is because 31% of our health care dollars go to overhead and paperwork. It is inevitiable in a for-profit private system that this will happen because of the bills and the high executive salaries that you don't see in countries with single-payer.
As an independent health insurance agent who has worked in the business for a looooonnnng time. I can tell you administrative costs is NOT just what makes medical care so expensive. Rather it is OVERMEDICATING and OVERPRESCRIBING and OVERTREATING Americans. Other countries offer NATURAL MEDICINE on a level playing field with ALLOPATHIC WESTERN MEDICINE -(what medical doctors are trained in which is to treat SYMPTOMS of disease ONLY). Doctors of natural medicine pursuing a degree in Naturopathic Medicine learn in medical school how to find CAUSES of chronic and degenerative diseases and by then treating the CAUSE of the disease, safely naturally inexpensively, THE so-called "incurable"DISEASE GOES AWAY PERMANENTLY.
Other countries spend less BECAUSE THEY USE LESS and they know to go to the doctors who are best trained to help them get the best results for chronic and degenerative diseases -- which are NOT CONVENTIONAL WESTERN ALLOPATHICALLY TRAINED MEDICAL DOCTORS.
Conventional doctors should be used for ACUTE problems only -- not chronic ones. The enough Europeans and ASians know this so that a significant percentage of their population that choose this mode of medicine real the benefits of robust health.
The reason why so called "health" care is so expensive here is because there IS NO REAL HEALTHCARE on a large scale-- there is only disease care because dumb Americans that believe everything they see on TV or read in the newspaper or what their medical doctor tells them just keep going to medical doctors for everything ---(including what they have not been trained to help them with other than to cover up the symptoms) --for their entire lives, rather than going to a doctor who is trained to help them get permanently RID of it.
Here's a novel idea: Rather than implement a program to pay for health insurance for everyone which will only be used to put more and more people on drugs costing us more and more money and not helping anyone get truly healthy --so they no longer need their drugs. Let's instead do what the rest of the world does and include ACTUAL HEALTH CARE with doctors trained to help people get well enough so they no longer NEED their prescriptions. Getting people healthy would save us HUGE dollars.
Another reason why so called "health" care is so expensive is that insurance, that is SUPPOSED TO BE FOR BIG THINGS, has been covering portions of office visits with a tiny co-pay __which does add to the administrative costs.
Think about it: does your auto insurance pay for an oil change????Does it pay for a brake job???? NO. Of course it doesn't. You auto insurace is also affordable just as your health insurance would be if it was designed the way it used to be. We don't mind paying a few hundred dollars to repair our car, we should be willing to value our health as much and go back to the days-----30 years ago---when people were willing to pay for their own daily wellness needs or sick visits here and there--- when health insurance was for the big things and health insurance was affordable. Medical costs were lower because people paid cash for them and doctors rates had to be competitive. ALL HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS HAD SIZABLE DEDUCTIBLES.
In the old days health insurance actually PROTECTED you. Today even if you have the perceived "best" health plan with a $10 office visit co-pay, you also have co-pays on your prescriptions right? What happens if you have to be on ten prescriptions each with a $75 co-pay??? That adds up to a cost to you of $750 per month or $9000 per year just to pay for your Rx co-pays!!!!!!!!!!! What kind of protection is that??? Don't forget you are also paying MUCH higher premiums for this plan --- that doesn't even really protect you when you need protection most.
Wouldn't you RATHER have a plan with a $2500 deductible and at least know that after you pay that much for everything, you will be 100% covered for everything??????? This is the kind of insurance all Americans need.
People think they are terrified of having to pay a $2500 deductible IF they get sick. Yet little to they realize, they pay $3500 --year in and year out-- in HIGHER PREMIUMS just so they can have their precious $10 office visit co-pay plan. Doesn't it make more sense to SAVE the $3500 each year and only pay $2500 when you are actually sick?????
Otherwise intelligent business owners and Human Resource people let themselves get caught up in the EMOTION of "health" care insurance when it is a FINANCIAL PRODUCT and EASY, at least for me, to determine if it really is the so-called "best" plan. Most expensive does NOT necessarily mean the best protection for your money as I've shown above.
Lastly the reason "health" care is so expensive especially in the Northeast and in some other select states is because of TOO MUCH government involvement. In the Northeastern states you find few national insurance companies even doing business due to the burdensome legislation they MUST follow if they want to do business in those states. I have been in this business long enough and primarily worked in the New England states to see states go from thriving, with lots of health insurers and choices of plans with affordable rates --such as Rhode Island for example-- to where the state legislation became SO BURDENSOME that the carriers decided to just leave the state. Now Rhode Island only has one state based Blue Cross company and United Healthcare doing business in the individual and small group markets --which are hardest hit by this crisis. So now if you decide you want to retire in Rhode Island you have a choice of 4 expensive plans with HIGH deductibles from Blue Cross for a renewable plan and that is IT!!!! Also, unless you get referred to me and I don't get paid a penny either), no agent will help you with any of the Blue Cross plans because Blue Cross won't pay any independent agent a penny. You have to go directly to Blue Cross and fend for yourself. There is nobody to help you at claims time to make sure you get claims paid in full. There are no other options for individuals and families in Rhode Island who want COMPREHENSIVE MAJOR MEDICAL INSURANCE! With out any competition, there is certainly no incentive for Blue Cross to keep its rates down either. IF you have proof of business, you can get United Healthcare. Other than Medicaid recipients where a state based HMO provides care there is nothing else. Needless to say, government getting involved, did NOT help the people and small businesses in Rhode Island.
Massachusetts isn't much better. Actually it is worse in many respects. Massachusetts also has few national insurers in the state. NONE of them market individual plans through agents the way it is done in normal states and now that the MANDATE is in place, there are fewer health insurance plans AND THEY ARE MORE EXPENSIVE!!!! Since they are more expensive, fewer people are insured. The state now tells you how big of a deductible you can and can't have, where before the mandate, you could choose.
Expect all this and WORSE with the OBAMA "health" care plan unless you do something to STOP it.
Yep, I'm not sure which will be the bigger job creator the free government clinics or the magical green energy power plants that run on CO2 free fairy dust and carbon neutral gum drops.
Grow up.
Well the privatized health care, our dirty energy economy and our addiction to foreign oil hasn't been working so we need a change. What you people who blindly hold on to Bush's and the neo-cons failed ideas don't understand is that you can't keep doing the same things and expect the same results. I understood this concept in grade school but it looks like you still don't understand it. If you ask me, it's you that needs to grow up!
Why do you think the govenment worker determining your healthcare will be of better caliber than DMV workers? Tell me the last time you had outsatnding service froma government employee.
The fact is you have recourse in the private sector, change companies appeals to government etc. Under government run healthcare you are stuck.
well my mother uses Medicare and is alot more satisfied with it than private insurance. The crapiest servie that I've got was from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is now Anthem. My wife was taking some medicine that doesn't mix well with caffiene and, without knowing this, had a cup of coffee. Her heart started beating really fast so I took her to the ER. She had to wait 7 hours to get taken care of, they gave her a cat scan, took a urine sample, told her to not mix the medicine with caffiene and sent her on her way. The bill cost $1,700. She had a $100 deductible and the insurance company was supposed to cover the rest. But we ended up having to pay for almost half of the bill! In Canada, France or the UK, she would have to pay anything for her ER visit and it she wouldn't have had to wait 7 hours.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freefall
Sick of ridiculous emergency room bills? If the private hospitals have to compete with free government clinics maybe they will be more reasonable. All the new hospitals and clinics need staff and we can train them here instead of import them. That is the most likely avenue for job creation, not 'green'.
Assuming for a moment that "Obama does it right" and an enormous amount of hospital and medical center development is initiated, thereby spawning construction jobs, nursing jobs, administrative jobs, custodial jobs, etc. etc. and this actually results in a meaningful number of unemployed people, which I'm not sure has a snowflake's chance of occuring, resuming gainful employment - the proposed healthcare bill will make insurance compulsory for everyone across the nation and the government will compel employers to meet or exceed apparently arbitrary guidelines for the insurance that they provide to employees. If their current policies are not up to government snuff, so to speak, they would be compelled to either move to a conforming carrier or start paying for government insurance. Unless this government is stupid or has a break from recent patterns, affordable insurance (for employers) that is otherwise completely reasonable will be off the table. Employers will be forced to spend significant amounts of money on new insurance. How do you think that additional expense will be borne? Out of a company's bottom line? I think it is much more likely that this will encourage a reduction in the most controllable expense - payroll. Across the board.
Rationalizing the healthcare reform bill as a job creation measure is not sound. This will hurt a lot of people and not just in corporate America. What about the nannies, maids, yardmen and other miscellaneous labor? Sure, they'll be covered by a bankrupt government's insurance policy but they'll be unemployed because the families, shops, stores, contractors and other small outfits that support them can no longer afford to keep them.
It's undeniable that something needs to change, but I don't think going after the wealthiest Americans and the people who generate jobs is anything like the answer.
I think it makes a lot more sense to limit hospital (as opposed to doctors') fees, which is the preponderance of any medical bill you have ever had, and to do something about the hordes of people that consider emergency rooms to be free clinics than to try to force America-at-large to adjust to a single industry that is out of control. This is a mess, but its working better than its press reflects and it would be extremely easy to muck our way into an even worse situation.
Last edited by jimboburnsy; 07-17-2009 at 12:25 PM..
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