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If what I bolded is true, and I do think it is, then what makes you think a government run national health insurance program (shades of Obamacare) would be any better ?
I'm in a grandfathered plan. Before Obamacare it was considered a high deductible plan. I'm healthy so that's what I took. My "high deductible" is less than Obamacare out of pocket.
Obamacare made health insurance more costly for everyone.
There are many different options for creating universal healthcare. I'm not advocating for any particular system at this time.
Obamacare could never have much effect on anything because it's only really about the individual plans which is a tiny portion of the market. Most people are on company plans and don't have a clue what the insurance, and their health care actually cost, and they have little incentive to care.
The US healthcare system is a disaster in so many ways. It's an issue that would make me want to leave the US if I had the real option to live and work in Europe. We need some form of universal healthcare. Our current system is bad for people, and the other issue right wingers refuse to acknowledge is that it's also bad for business, and often disastrous for small business. The cost of health insurance premiums have become so outrageous the average small business owner simply can't compete with the large multinationals. Health insurance needs to be separated from employment, and available for everyone at a reasonable cost. Every other first world country makes sure all of it's citizens are able to receive health care, and they spend less than we do.
The US puts insurance, hospital, and pharmaceutical company profit above it's citizens. The US puts corporate profits above all. I wonder how bad it has to get for the average citizen before people start fighting back. People need to stop falling for the divisive rhetoric causing them to fight with each other, and pretending this is a R vs D issue, and realize that our representatives are not working for us. If we stood together we could demand change.
Great, well thought post, you've echoed alot of what I've been thinking about this topic-- it drives me nuts when the healthcare disaster in the US gets dumbed down to the foolishness of partisan preferences or simple ideologies. It goes far beyond all that, and above all the US healthcare system is damaging to US business, business interests and global power, in big part due to the stupid, damaging linkage of healthcare to employment as you pointed out. (This itself is the root of a lot of the problems-- people are always switching jobs, doing creative work and starting businesses, putting them in position of lacking health coverage during this period is very damaging to entrepreneur ambition and labor market flexibility, not to mention small businesses.)
Again this is the central point of the matter, the US healthcare system isn't just bad for individuals, it's terrible for US businesses, and it's not left or right leaning ideologically-- it's just ineffective There's no free market in healthcare in general (you can't "shop for hospitals" when you're in an ambulance having a heart attack), but there's even less of one the way the US system stupidly gives the insurance companies their monopolies. And the health ins executives make outrageous salaries and bonuses for, what exactly? Were talking about tens of millions of dollars, sometimes more than 100 million dollars a year for the health insurance CEO's and millions more for other executives, and they contribute nothing to the economy at all, only taking money away from the parts of the system that produce things and bankrupting millions of Americans in the process.
It's a conflicting-of interest by design-- the health insurers make big money by taking people's premiums but then denying claims, it's a stupid and corrupt way to run a system. And again the problem goes beyond immediate partisan politics, it was terrible before Obamacare, but it's still terrible afterward because the legislation didn't address the basic flaw of the system, the power of the health insurer monopolies to inflate the costs, and both parties have failed to do their jobs.
It's funny how so much of the news is always worrying about the dangers to America from the ISIL fighters or Russia, when by far the greatest damage to our country and our global power is being done by these US-based health insurance parasites and the ridiculous billers in hospitals and clinics. In one week they do more damage to the United States than ISIL or Putin could ever dream of hurting the USA in a decade-- bankrupting people, discouraging small businesses from starting up, damaging Americans health and making people afraid to get medical care, disrupting preventing care, driving up the cost of medicines, hurting consumer spending on the broader economy, driving away skilled immigrants, driving US-born Americans themselves out of the country, especially those with skills and options abroad. There are some other parasitic businesses that also do damage, I'd say divorce attorneys (scaring smart and well earning people away from getting married due to alimony gives you an idiocracy) and of course the Wall Street bankers like Goldman Sachs share that distinction, but not even the banker crooks after the 2008 crash do anywhere near the scale of damage as the US's rotten health insurance and billing parasites do.
And maybe the worst part, is neither party is willing to do anything about it, because our system stupidly allows for legal corruption, that is the lobbying and outright bribery of elected officials by these same parasites with the money they've stolen from the people. And the Supreme Court of course encouraged this more with Citizens united. Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is how great powers always fall, they let their worst crooks get the power and run the agenda, I guess at least we get to see another falling of Rome occur right before us.
I'm sure the illegals don't want to leave. They have it better than citizens here.
Well, if enough of the citizens leave, won't it be exactly like what they just left. It will since once they infect an area, it becomes a slum just like what they were fleeing.
As someone else said, unless we, the people, get serious about the situation the country is in, the US as we knew it will be gone. I mean we are already "going, going" and "gone" is looming overhead.
The US healthcare system is a disaster in so many ways. It's an issue that would make me want to leave the US if I had the real option to live and work in Europe. We need some form of universal healthcare. Our current system is bad for people, and the other issue right wingers refuse to acknowledge is that it's also bad for business, and often disastrous for small business. The cost of health insurance premiums have become so outrageous the average small business owner simply can't compete with the large multinationals. Health insurance needs to be separated from employment, and available for everyone at a reasonable cost. Every other first world country makes sure all of it's citizens are able to receive health care, and they spend less than we do.
The US puts insurance, hospital, and pharmaceutical company profit above it's citizens. The US puts corporate profits above all. I wonder how bad it has to get for the average citizen before people start fighting back. People need to stop falling for the divisive rhetoric causing them to fight with each other, and pretending this is a R vs D issue, and realize that our representatives are not working for us. If we stood together we could demand change.
I most definitely agree. The USA Healthcare is set so it makes as much money as it can. The Pharmaceutical end of it should have been investigated years ago. The nonstop commercials on TV should have been, a red warning flag when they started them. Many people are up the creek without an oar in this country with health care, they simply cannot afford to be sick. Many Americans are ok with that, as long as they are not the one's without care. I have insurance but my biggest gripe is with the Drug makers in this country. Today I was getting close to running out of the strips, that I use to check my blood sugar. My Insurer would not pay for more strips, because I am having to check more now. My doctor had to raise my insulin dosage, which means more checking. So even at Walmart only 50 strips was $82. for the glucose meter I now have. 50 strips will last me exactly 8 days. There was no excuse for that price. So thankfully Walmart sells a really cheap glucose meter and 50 strips for $9.00.No insurance needed. So you can see what a ripoff the insurance is. I have BC/BS and Medicare. I hope all these Healthcare groups, hospitals, and especially the Pharmaceutical end of it all meet in hell.
Great, well thought post, you've echoed alot of what I've been thinking about this topic-- it drives me nuts when the healthcare disaster in the US gets dumbed down to the foolishness of partisan preferences or simple ideologies. It goes far beyond all that, and above all the US healthcare system is damaging to US business, business interests and global power, in big part due to the stupid, damaging linkage of healthcare to employment as you pointed out. (This itself is the root of a lot of the problems-- people are always switching jobs, doing creative work and starting businesses, putting them in position of lacking health coverage during this period is very damaging to entrepreneur ambition and labor market flexibility, not to mention small businesses.)
Again this is the central point of the matter, the US healthcare system isn't just bad for individuals, it's terrible for US businesses, and it's not left or right leaning ideologically-- it's just ineffective There's no free market in healthcare in general (you can't "shop for hospitals" when you're in an ambulance having a heart attack), but there's even less of one the way the US system stupidly gives the insurance companies their monopolies. And the health ins executives make outrageous salaries and bonuses for, what exactly? Were talking about tens of millions of dollars, sometimes more than 100 million dollars a year for the health insurance CEO's and millions more for other executives, and they contribute nothing to the economy at all, only taking money away from the parts of the system that produce things and bankrupting millions of Americans in the process.
It's a conflicting-of interest by design-- the health insurers make big money by taking people's premiums but then denying claims, it's a stupid and corrupt way to run a system. And again the problem goes beyond immediate partisan politics, it was terrible before Obamacare, but it's still terrible afterward because the legislation didn't address the basic flaw of the system, the power of the health insurer monopolies to inflate the costs, and both parties have failed to do their jobs.
It's funny how so much of the news is always worrying about the dangers to America from the ISIL fighters or Russia, when by far the greatest damage to our country and our global power is being done by these US-based health insurance parasites and the ridiculous billers in hospitals and clinics. In one week they do more damage to the United States than ISIL or Putin could ever dream of hurting the USA in a decade-- bankrupting people, discouraging small businesses from starting up, damaging Americans health and making people afraid to get medical care, disrupting preventing care, driving up the cost of medicines, hurting consumer spending on the broader economy, driving away skilled immigrants, driving US-born Americans themselves out of the country, especially those with skills and options abroad. There are some other parasitic businesses that also do damage, I'd say divorce attorneys (scaring smart and well earning people away from getting married due to alimony gives you an idiocracy) and of course the Wall Street bankers like Goldman Sachs share that distinction, but not even the banker crooks after the 2008 crash do anywhere near the scale of damage as the US's rotten health insurance and billing parasites do.
And maybe the worst part, is neither party is willing to do anything about it, because our system stupidly allows for legal corruption, that is the lobbying and outright bribery of elected officials by these same parasites with the money they've stolen from the people. And the Supreme Court of course encouraged this more with Citizens united. Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is how great powers always fall, they let their worst crooks get the power and run the agenda, I guess at least we get to see another falling of Rome occur right before us.
This is a brilliant post, Corascant. You put into words what so many Americans believe. Bernie Sanders certainly thinks like you do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUNzkj3Z3pA
I most definitely agree. The USA Healthcare is set so it makes as much money as it can. The Pharmaceutical end of it should have been investigated years ago. The nonstop commercials on TV should have been, a red warning flag when they started them. Many people are up the creek without an oar in this country with health care, they simply cannot afford to be sick. Many Americans are ok with that, as long as they are not the one's without care. I have insurance but my biggest gripe is with the Drug makers in this country. Today I was getting close to running out of the strips, that I use to check my blood sugar. My Insurer would not pay for more strips, because I am having to check more now. My doctor had to raise my insulin dosage, which means more checking. So even at Walmart only 50 strips was $82. for the glucose meter I now have. 50 strips will last me exactly 8 days. There was no excuse for that price. So thankfully Walmart sells a really cheap glucose meter and 50 strips for $9.00.No insurance needed. So you can see what a ripoff the insurance is. I have BC/BS and Medicare. I hope all these Healthcare groups, hospitals, and especially the Pharmaceutical end of it all meet in hell.
Thanks for mentioning the Big-Pharma side of it too, yea a lot of these pharmaceutical companies are off the-wall exploitative, ex. Pfizer, Amgen and Gilead foisting off their drugs for thousands of dollars a pill (even though the research and development for them was mostly done in government-funded public labs) like for that Hep C drug, or what Merck did with Vioxx, and all of them giving little gifts to doctors to make unauthorized prescriptions for non FDA approved uses to boost their bottom lines. Or even worse, that slimeball Martin Shkreli with Turing Pharmaceuticals, jacking up the price of each Daraprim pill to nearly $1,000-- for a basic generic drug that's been around for decades. This jerk did nothing to research or develop it, nothing to help bring it to market, he just secured a monopoly in the USA with our corrupt government's stupid co-operation (not so hard when our elections are basically setup for these crooks to lobby and bribe our legislators).
The worst part about this is, an American can take a luxury trip to Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Tokyo or Shanghai, practically anywhere in the world, without insurance-- and get these same drugs for at most a few hundred dollars, simply because these countries have more common-sense health care systems and well managed sensible costs. And the total cost of the whole trip, even if you stay at a luxury hotel, is still far less than you'd pay for crummy treatment in a hospital ER back home in the US! Skilled, entrepreneurial Americans and immigrants know this, and it's one of the big reasons they're not coming here anymore, and Americans are leaving abroad. I don't know what'll take for our corrupt, stupid politicians to figure out that this pathetic mess of a healthcare system is wrecking the US economy and our economic lifeblood. But I guess the political class is too busy taking bribes and accepting bribe-worthy consulting deals from the very same crooks they're supposed to be protecting the public from. So the problem will only get worse and worse with no sign of it ever getting better.
I don't know what'll take for our corrupt, stupid politicians to figure out that this pathetic mess of a healthcare system is wrecking the US economy and our economic lifeblood. But I guess the political class is too busy taking bribes and accepting bribe-worthy consulting deals from the very same crooks they're supposed to be protecting the public from. So the problem will only get worse and worse with no sign of it ever getting better.
As long as the above happens the politicians don't care because they get re-elected, get their campaign money and get guaranteed jobs either lobbying for them or get a seat on their board of directors.
And Americans keep voting them in and cheer when they say they want to control health insurance with not a word of controlling the costs of health CARE.
As long as the above happens the politicians don't care because they get re-elected, get their campaign money and get guaranteed jobs either lobbying for them or get a seat on their board of directors.
And Americans keep voting them in and cheer when they say they want to control health insurance with not a word of controlling the costs of health CARE.
Yes, you hit-the-nail-on-the-head, THIS is why so many Americans are not only frustrated with our healthcare disaster but encountering so much despair that they're leaving the US for other countries-- not only is the US healthcare system a disastrous and expensive mess, there's so much bribery and corruption in the US Congress and state legislatures (by health ins. companies, Big Pharma) that it's doubtful it'll get corrected anytime soon. This is why people leave 3rd world countries, the corruption of the elites deprives people of hope. Now the USA has become like that, full of corruption,that makes it too hard to reform the system.
After all that survey showed that well over half of young Americans want to leave the US since they're the ones most affected by all this corruption-- they're trying to start their careers but get slammed by these outrageous health care costs if they get hit by a car or their appendix bursts, with no way to afford the outrageous charges and insurance premiums while also tackling their student loans as the states pullback their support for educational funding.
I was watching Bill Maher last night and one of his guest was Lawrence Lessig. His platform is to run for President just to fix our broken political system. Has anyone ever heard of him and what do you think of his position?
Obviously, this survey wasn't taken any place that immigrants who consider themselves Ameicans chose to live.
^^^
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corascant
No, actually many of the respondents in the survey were recent immigrants who, more and more, are no longer staying in the USA, but returning to their home countries due to basic US policy failures (especially on healthcare and the horrendously written Fatca tax law). In fact I've seen this myself and it's one of the most distressing things that any patriotic American can witness. My industry has always had a big international component of workers, and I've been working in it for decades.
This is untrue. You have no idea who the respondents were. If you read the link, you find this about the survey:
Quote:
A recent online poll of more than 2,000 adults by TransferWise, a peer-to-peer money transfer service based in the United Kingdom, revealed that 35 percent of American-born residents and emigrants would consider leaving the United States to live in another country.
This percentage greatly increases for those age 18 to 34. More than half of millennials, a whopping 55 percent, said that they would consider leaving the U.S. for foreign shores. Among them, 43 percent of men and 38 percent of women noted that a higher salary would be a factor in their relocation decision.
Online polls are self-selected and the least scientific of all polls. That this poll was located on a money transfer site based outside the US further skewed the results. My guess is that if the NRA had an online poll about gun control on its website, 99% of its respondents would oppose any controls at all when the most recent scientific polls on gun control suggest that most Americans support stronger background checks and are about evenly divided about whether existing gun control laws are strict enough or too strict.
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