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My take on all of this:
In the socialized medicine part of health care in the United States (Medicaid, Medicare, and CHIP kid-Medicaid), the expensive part is chronic behavior-induced health problems caused by cigarettes, alcohol, lousy diet, lack of exercise, .... What I would do is ration health care so the system is generous for people who "do it right". Annual physical. Exercise. Appropriate body weight. Eat heart-healthy foods. No smoking. No heavy alcohol or drug use. If you do all that and life happens, the system is generous. If you go off the rails with your behavior, your health care is strictly rationed. When society is paying, it is your obligation to society to keep yourself healthy. If you choose otherwise, I don't see that society should pay for your poor decisions.
We all die eventually. The longer we live, the more healthcare expenses we will typically generate. The last year of life accounts for 8.5% of all healthcare spending. Don't forget to add nursing home care and other types of assisted living as people live longer and need care that is not in a hospital.
What if you get cancer? Can you prove it was a chronic behavior-induced health problem as you describe it? Who will determine who does it right? Who will determine if I ate a lousy diet or if I didn't exercise enough? Will I be penalized because I inherited unhealthy genes from my parents?
Well, for starters, I believe EVERYONE needs to take control of their health and that's what I do...spend most of my money on supplements to work on healing myself before I run off to doctors.
The rest of it, the experts can't even do what is needed...I guess.
America is too capitalistic a country. Needs and wants are bigger and bigger and so it goes.
I couldn't agree more. We must be responsible for our own health.
Lately I've been listening to "the doctor channel" on my XM Radio and if that doesn't scare the pee-waddle out of you, nothing will. Most of the time, despite having access to millions of dollars worth of medical technology, they haven't got a clue.
It amazes me we have six military academies and yet no government research labs specifically designed to develop new antibiotics as an example. Big pharma doesn't because of little profit. The defense dept bleeds the country dry and for what? 17 years of idiocy in Afghanistan? We have resources that are simply directed in dumb directions. And the pentagon cannot even account for the trillions given to them.
With Medicare, you pay a monthly premium. Medicare picks up 80% of allowable charges. You need a supplement for the other 20% which can be substantial. People don't want to pay premiums and many pay no taxes. I think what many are suggesting is having Medicaid nationally where it is free for everyone as if free is reality. There are not enough physicians, not enough beds, not enough anything to have national health coverage for 330 million people. We also do not let people die in peace when there is no hope. We spend the bank trying to keep someone alive rather than helping them die in peace. Nuts!
Let some gangbanger show up in an ER and the hospital is required to treat that trash fully on the taxpayer's dime. Maybe the Chinese have it right with their social credit ideas. If you are a scum sucking thug, then you don't get crap.
If you are a felon, nothing. Ok, maybe the right to vote again in Florida.
Ours is a childish society. Like it or not, our nation is going to undergo some huge changes and it isn't going to be pleasant. It is going to get very ugly. Health insurance is just one item on an ugly agenda.
So much of what you say is right on, almost exactly what I would be saying and have said very often.
Don't quit understand your abx comment, but that is OK does not matter. I can't complain about the few abx drugs I've taken in my 80 yrs.
It amazes me we have six military academies and yet no government research labs specifically designed to develop new antibiotics as an example. Big pharma doesn't because of little profit. The defense dept bleeds the country dry and for what? 17 years of idiocy in Afghanistan? We have resources that are simply directed in dumb directions. And the pentagon cannot even account for the trillions given to them.
With Medicare, you pay a monthly premium. Medicare picks up 80% of allowable charges. You need a supplement for the other 20% which can be substantial. People don't want to pay premiums and many pay no taxes. I think what many are suggesting is having Medicaid nationally where it is free for everyone as if free is reality. There are not enough physicians, not enough beds, not enough anything to have national health coverage for 330 million people. We also do not let people die in peace when there is no hope. We spend the bank trying to keep someone alive rather than helping them die in peace. Nuts!
Let some gangbanger show up in an ER and the hospital is required to treat that trash fully on the taxpayer's dime. Maybe the Chinese have it right with their social credit ideas. If you are a scum sucking thug, then you don't get crap.
If you are a felon, nothing. Ok, maybe the right to vote again in Florida.
Ours is a childish society. Like it or not, our nation is going to undergo some huge changes and it isn't going to be pleasant. It is going to get very ugly. Health insurance is just one item on an ugly agenda.
We treat the gangbanger who is lying on the street with a broken leg, because we’re a moral society. I don’t see any other way around that delima, besides leaving him on the street, but to save costs, why don’t they have med students treat these cases.
Healthcare is not going to be a one size fits all though. Some want the government involved, others prefer the free market. Some need a lot of coverage, others hardly go for Dr visits. There are people who barely have enough for a Dr visit and others who can afford the best coverage. It’s going to be a process to solve. Maybe a solution would be to have Congress use Obamacare instead of their own Platinum coverage until a good plan is put in place. I bet it would happen in a week.
We need single payer healthcare. We need to take the evil insurance companies out of the mix. We need to reign in big Pharma and put an end to price gouging on medications. How we do that is another story. But if we did do it our taxes would be lower than our insurance premiums and costs of doctors and medications combined that we now pay.
That will never happen. When the bailout happened, the President relied on Goldman sachs or ex Goldman sachs guys for directions. Same way single-payer healthcare will also be eventually managed by some health insurance companies only, not the government.
Now we have CVS Aetna merging . Why would they go against the pharma companies who give them products to sell??
As consumers we have to make sure we have good jobs and good coverage and be healthy. And I also dont mind my tax dollars helping some poor guy who isnt making as much as me.
We treat the gangbanger who is lying on the street with a broken leg, because we’re a moral society. I don’t see any other way around that delima, besides leaving him on the street, but to save costs, why don’t they have med students treat these cases.
Healthcare is not going to be a one size fits all though. Some want the government involved, others prefer the free market. Some need a lot of coverage, others hardly go for Dr visits. There are people who barely have enough for a Dr visit and others who can afford the best coverage. It’s going to be a process to solve. Maybe a solution would be to have Congress use Obamacare instead of their own Platinum coverage until a good plan is put in place. I bet it would happen in a week.
Plus, penalizing people for going to doctor visits is just going to result in big problems that could have been solved by preventive visits early on. If you have some strange symptoms and are worried about the costs, better to go to the doctor and ask about them than wait until it is something serious.
These days many practices do use second-level providers (NPs/PAs) to help keep the cost of care down. I have a family member who retired from a large cancer center and they used PAs. They can practice in almost all areas and typically do a very good job. I have gone to urgent care, gyn and several specialists and seen the NP/PA and had no complaints. In one practice area (dermatology), I actually preferred the care I got from the PAs than I got from the MDs. The only one who actually helped me was a PA.
Where do you get that idea? https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researc...al-development "As of June 2018, approximately 42 new antibiotics with the potential to treat serious bacterial infections are in clinical development. The success rate for clinical drug development is low; historical data show that, generally, only 1 in 5 infectious disease products that enter human testing (phase 1 clinical trials) will be approved for patients.* "
First, I am advocating for a government operated research and development agency on the level of DARPA or whatever it is called today. The article showed all the research is by private companies.
Second, if you look at the update notes, some of the research was abandoned on individual drugs. This might be due to technical reasons but often it is a CEO who stops a program because it shows no profit potential.
Third, the article shows how drug companies will take an “old” product, make a minor change, give it a new name and market it for more money and with a new patent.
There are already resistant infections killing people. We are falling further behind Mother Nature. I am saying do not leave research in the hands of for profit corporations. They sell baby powder containing asbestos I hear.
First, I am advocating for a government operated research and development agency on the level of DARPA or whatever it is called today. The article showed all the research is by private companies.
Second, if you look at the update notes, some of the research was abandoned on individual drugs. This might be due to technical reasons but often it is a CEO who stops a program because it shows no profit potential.
Third, the article shows how drug companies will take an “old” product, make a minor change, give it a new name and market it for more money and with a new patent.
There are already resistant infections killing people. We are falling further behind Mother Nature. I am saying do not leave research in the hands of for profit corporations. They sell baby powder containing asbestos I hear.
Wouldn't single payer health insurance put the medical doctors on salaries like in other countries? You think they'll go for that?
All the years I worked and there were about 40 yrs of working, employer paid all my health insurance and then it was time for Medicare at 65. I never had issues all my life with the cost as employers were very helpful but so much has changed from what I hear today. And medical costs keep rising. Like Everything.
Why should health care be dependent on whether or not your employer offers coverage? Why should you be tied to a job simply to retain health insurance? what happens when your employer goes bankrupt or terminates the insurance to save the costs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by newtovenice
Great.
You do understand that if there was no health insurance, you'd actually be able to know what prices you would be paying ... for everything?
And that all doctors and hospitals and outpatient centers and pharmaceuticals would have to publish them?
If the are too high?
No one's buying.
But you'd rather ensure, through keeping the pathetically broken system going, that everyone -- including YOURSELF -- gets price gouged at every turn. And has no knowledge what they are paying for. Or how much it costs.
Good gawd, people are beyond brainwashed. BY FEAR. They'd rather give their money away than think rationally about 1. how to improve the system, and 2. how to save money.
Without insurance, I wouldn't have been able to afford the $200k my cancer treatment cost, and no, it wouldn't have been noticeably cheaper if insurance didn't exist, due to the technology used. You might be able to pay for routine doctor visits without insurance, but any treatment involving surgery and technology is going to cost more than most folks can afford.
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