what would the new reformed healthcare bill mean for Maine? (Augusta: insuring, lawyer)

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by flycessna

I am saddened to see so many who still think that a government through legislations and regulations can somehow make our lives better when it comes to health care. In my own limited and simplistic view I guess the idea that everyone is going to receive the same high level of medical care (that is now available) is just not practical.

I agree.

Legislators for hire are not going to fix the problem that they made.

... My poor analogy is education. Since government has taking over education it has become one of the single most costly areas to state and local budgets. There are major discrepancies in the level of quality of education throughout the country. Government’s solution is to continually throw more money at the problem by taxing the working, and now imagine if education, like healthcare, was from birth to death. And also imagine, like health care, if the government sole goal was to eliminate any all avenues of private education.

Maine might appear to benefit on paper from a plan like this but the fact is Dirigo has been a huge failure that our governor and legislature fail to admit. We used to have competition in this state prior to the state regulating the insurance companies to the point where they all left…now there is only one company who basically has a monopoly

Good point.

Well, technically there is more than only one company in Maine, but otherwise you made a good point.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by RANGER.101ST

you cant reform health care until you reform Augusta.
im for paying my own way.
if i break my leg im not going to my neighbor and asking him to pay my hospital bill.
if my neighbor breaks his leg and wants me to pay for his hospital bill im breaking his other leg.
its not you responsibility to pay for my health care nore is it mine to pay yours.
thats what insurence is for.
what we need to do is reform the insurence industry.

I agree.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by starwalker

... Honestly I do not believe in the concept of insurance. Giving $$ to a profit-based company that is betting that they won't have to give any back to you, and essentially betting against yourself, that they will just seems backwards and wrong. ...

I agree that the ethics of 'insurance' are all wrong. Therefore it is wrong to base anything upon insurance.

[maineguy8888]

It's just immoral to be supporting this FIASCO. The idea behind this fiasco is that although we KNOW that health care will deteriorate, as it has in every other socialized health care system, that's OKAY, because people who are well-off should not get better medical care than the poor or working poor. This perverse sense of equality, where we will ALL suffer equally, is immoral. Because it means people will get HURT or DIE who would otherwise be treated and helped. The SEIU/ACORN/Obama crowd is good at rolling out stories of people who have been hurt by our current system, but why don't they tell just a few of the MULTITUDE of stories about people who needlessly suffered under socialized medicine? (My wife's family can tell you a few of those stories.....)
No, immorality cloaked in piety is gross and disgusting. Any time, all the time.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by maineguy8888

... as it has in every other socialized health care system ...

It is difficult to wrap ones mind around how those systems work. The first time that I was in a culture where disease treatment stops once you turn 60, it did surprise me. But after a few decades with it, everyone there seems to be 'happy' with the idea.

'Death with dignity' instead of heart surgeries and exotic treatments to save the elderly and try to give them an extra decade of life; they make it sound so much more dignified to hand out pain drugs and comfort the elderly as they die from treatable ailments.

Such is not the way that I see things. But when I was living there, I was the foreigner.

Already here in the US we have legislators telling the docs what they can prescribe. And we are in the progress of getting online with congressional limits to what treatments a doc can recommend for each given ailment. [My PCP was explaining some of the current limits that she must work within].

Soon it appears that congress-critters will be re-defining those limits to bring the costs of health care down.

What does this mean for Maine?

Well as 'MaineGuy' suggests, we go down the well trodden path that every other nation with a socialized health care system has gone down.

[maineguy8888]

Mark Steyn told a story today of a visitor from the UK who recently visited him in New Hampshire. This somewhat-elderly visitor had been told 8-10 years ago by the Nationalized Medicine doctors in the UK that her arm pain was normal for someone getting older, just get used to it, take a lot of Ibuprofen, and stop driving, etc. (which she did stop).
Last week, in NH, her arm swelled up more than usual and Steyn took her to a run-of-the-mill rural hospital, where some good tests were done and the real problem was found: GOUT. GOUT, I tell you. A totally treatable, usually non-fatal disease which has nothing to do with inevitable slowing down. A few days' regimen of good TREATMENT, and his guest was ten times healthier.
This story has nothing to do with denying advanced care to those near the end of their life. IT IS JUST THE WAY THINGS WORK under nationalized medicine.
So........any one on here who WANTS to suffer horribly with gout for 5-10 years, and to have their lifestyle seriously reduced for that length of time, please raise your hand.
I didn't think so.
"Death Panels"?????? There are no death panels in Obamacare. There doesn't HAVE to be! The whole bloody system would be ONE BIG "death panel"!

[JC3]

Ranger..you are right but many of these doctors are accepting medicare and medicaid payments as well. Ask one what they make on each dollar, peanuts. Also, their insurance premiums are upwards in 100K range. They do charge the same for everyone probably...but in reality never come close to getting that overall. Hope I explained what I mean. Heck, I know what I am trying to say...I think. lol

I don't have the answers myself but after hearing the biggest complaints, I would think those would be the easiest to fix. I totally agree with re-examining these systems in place and doing away with fraud, mismanagment, waste..etc. Why would it be so hard for congress to pass a regulation that would eliminate insurance companies from discriminating someone for a pre-existing condition? They can do it to credit card companies, they sure can do it to insurance companies. On the state level, why isn't more done to enhance competition? Why not pass a law that a person only has to buy/pay what coverage they want as opposed to paying a full premium for stuff they don't need or will never need? IE: I will never have a mamogram (least not in this lifetime), so why should I pay for that coverage?

Lastly, it is no wonder no one will even discuss tort reform since the laws are being made by mostly lawyers. This is not to eliminate any real malpractice suit but to prevent the frivolous ones that are settled because it is cheaper to do than it is to fight them. These lawyers KNOW which they are and which they could get sympathetic jurists to side with becuase they know most are on the side of the little guy. These all drive up the overall costs of insurance and doctors fees.

I am all healthcared out....if these bozos don't get jobs moving soon, healthcare will be a moot point. We will all just show up at hospitals and when the docs and nurses don't get paid...and are gone...we can treat each other. I'll pass out the lollipops.

[CoastalMaine]

Originally Posted by RANGER.101ST

you cant reform health care until you reform Augusta.
im for paying my own way.
if i break my leg im not going to my neighbor and asking him to pay my hospital bill.
if my neighbor breaks his leg and wants me to pay for his hospital bill im breaking his other leg.
its not you responsibility to pay for my health care nore is it mine to pay yours.
thats what insurence is for.
what we need to do is reform the insurence industry.

Absolutely 100% right and I agree wholeheartedly with you on ALL points Ranger.

[Sunday1]

[quote=Acadianlion;10321844]Everyone is missing the point. IF insurance companies cannot underwrite the risks that they insure, they will either raise rates to the point that no one can afford coverage, or simply leave the state. There are NO alternatives.>

Lobbyists for the health insurance industry love people who really believe that argument. Problem is, it just isn't real.

What is real is the impact of an obscene profit margin and the fact that the health insurance industry is the second most profitable industry in America.

The problem with that is that its achieved by denying health care services that people want and their doctors believe are necessary. Services that people have already paid a premium for. It isn't about covering risk. It's above protecting profit.

Profit derived that way isn't ethical, successful capitalism at its finest. It's greed derived from a business model that is essentially the antithesis of the hippocratic oath. Providers are not the problem. Not even corrupt providers nor self-motivated trial attorneys.

The problem is the health insurance industry.

[maineguy8888]

[quote=Sunday1;10339443]

Originally Posted by Acadianlion

Everyone is missing the point. IF insurance companies cannot underwrite the risks that they insure, they will either raise rates to the point that no one can afford coverage, or simply leave the state. There are NO alternatives.>

Lobbyists for the health insurance industry love people who really believe that argument. Problem is, it just isn't real.

What is real is the impact of an obscene profit margin and the fact that health insurance industry is the second most profitable industry in America.

The problem with that is that its achieved by denying health care services that people want and their doctors believe are necessary. Services that people have already paid a premium for. It isn't about covering risk. It's above protecting profit.

Profit derived that way isn't ethical,successful capitalism at its finest. It's greed derived from a business model that is essentially the antithesis of the hippocratic oath. Providers are not the problem. Not even corrupt providers nor self-motivated trial attorneys.

The problem is the health insurance industry.

If you believe that the Guv'mint will be any LESS ineffective, greedy, misguided, incompetent, slothful, corrupt, lazy or Kafka-esque than the insurance industry is, well then.............I hardly know what to say. It defies 100 + years of experience with the Guv'mint in this country, as it has "run things".
The insurance industry angers me quite a bit. The Guv'mint both ANGERS me just as much, it scares the hell out of me too. These ideologues will use any issue, including health care, to assuage their power tripping. They really DO just want to run our lives, I've learned.
"I love my country, but fear my government". Never was a truer thing said.
CONSIDER: In Oregon, under ITS socialized health care regime, a woman was recently told that they would NOT be paying for her cancer treatments (too expensive, and she was older.) But they WOULD pay for her euthanasia (which is legal in Oregon), if she wanted that.
Should that not just chill any one to the bone for days and days?
Maybe it's just me.