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Good post; we are headed for single-payor insurance anyway; some may argue about it, but it seems inevitable..
Is Single Payer purely government owned and managed care? That is what I see and I just would never consider getting an M. D. in order to have some bureaucrat decide how much money I can make. Many of our doctors these days have enough money to retire on and with no new ones to replace them with I guess we will have to ration care. Explain to me how that works.
If you were among those without insurance, you either forwent care as long as you could, at a substantial risk to your life, or you asked for charity, never a pleasant task for an elderly person who has always taken pride in paying their bills. So many died from delaying care.
one doctors opinion and he has a right to it. I know my reletives who were seniors prior to 1965 didn't feel this way. They did seek medical care when needed (no they didn't run to the doctors like many do today) but the main reason some died too young was due more to poor diagnostic proceedures than lack of facilities and money.
OK. Let's be blunt about this. Over and over again, we hear about the huge cost of "saving" an elderly person's life in the hospital. They go back to the nursing home and die shortly. Was this a good use of medicare money? What about facing the obvious and putting the patient under Hospice instead of Hospital care?
One real gripe I have about Medicare is the restrictions it places on doctors as to who they can see. If they want to treat ANY patient of medicare age, then they must see and bill for ALL that come to see them.
Gone are the days when a doctor could see a patient on a charity basis. Medicare? charge them, collect the medicare fee and then push the patient for the balance due. Medicare won't let the doctor write off the balance if he wants to either.
I have one doctor that puts N/C, surgical follow,on my visit. So he sees me for free. My surgery was 20 years ago. But he doesn't have to bill Medicare, take their little piddle payment and bill me for the dollar or two that's left. The cost of billing for a small amount is just not worth it.
On this forum is a topic about the minimum wage, which most conservatives are against raising.
Tell me, how is the average worker supposed to save up hundreds of thousands of dollars for end-of-life care when wages are either stagnant or falling for most people (except the top?)
Obviously, we need to control health care costs, which the free market is not succeeding to do. In other industrialized countries, HC costs are 1/2 of the costs here.
It would seem to me that if the hard-right is serious about keeping costs down instead of stuck in a fixed ideology, they'd be the first to advocate for that plan. But no, they're slaves to the ideology and everything else is not important.
Hardly - it's a "take care of yourself, and stop expecting others to do that for you" mentality.
Only stupid people think that raising the minimum wage would mean people have more disposable income. If minimum wage is raised, the cost of goods will raise with it.
Yes, we do need to control health care costs. But the free market hasn't been a part of healthcare in a very long time. When there is little oversight, and fraud is rampant, costs skyrocket. Then there's that whole "it's not my money" mentality. Make it "your" money, and you'll see how fast the market adjusts.
Please show your stats on healthcare being half the cost here. Or are you only counting out-of-pocket. To truly compare, you need to take into consideration the taxes paid for that "free" care. But the left loves to twist the truth, by omitting the true facts, to further their agenda.
As for end-of-care costs. Why are we spending millions, no billions, to keep granny alive in a nursing home, when it's obvious she's in pain and has a short time to live? It's because of the fear of lawsuits. What about quality of life? Dems LOVE to pretend they care about people, but they'd rather have granny suffer in her last days, keeping her alive with heroic measures, instead of letting her go peacefully.
Well I am old enough to well remember life for the elderly before medicare. Unless you were very, very rich it went something like this:
After a lifetime of working hard they got old and sick (which will happen to all of us lucky enough to live a long life. First they spent all their savings...if they were lucky enough to have any....to pay for their medical care. Then they sold their house....if they were lucky enough to have one....to pay the doctor bills. Then they moved in with their kids.....if they were lucky enough to have any in a position to take them in and their kids then spent their savings on mom or dad's doctor bills. By this time mom or dad felt too guilty to let their kids spend any more so they quit going to the doctor, quit taking their medicine, and they died....often in great pain.
These weren't people who "didn't care about their health" or who had lived a wild, careless life. These were hard working, honest, decent people whose only "crime" was getting old and sick.
I hope all of you who want to see medicare end have a bedroom ready for your folks when they need it, cause they will. And I hope you are being good parents to your kids so that when you need to move in with them they will let you.
How much do you have saved up? To do that would require a person to have a second job all through adulthood. My FIL had gall bladder surgery 4 years ago and, due to his age, required 18 days in ICU and 7 weeks in a rehab nursing home. His retail cost bill would have been over $120,000. Now he's sick again and has been in and out of hospitals and nursing homes for the past 3 months. Just how much money do you think a person should save up? Where is the average American going to get that much money?
Realistically, you have to mean that each and every American can save $1,000,000 above and beyond what is needed for retirement living.
Somebody that believes this: Please explain how it is possible.
and if we didn't have medicare and all the other programs we have, medical care might not be as expensive as it is now, not to mention what our medical personel have to pay for their mal practice insurance, thus creating a situation where everytime we sneeze they want us to get an X-ray, see a specialist or go to the emergancy room.
I guess libs also think medicare should cover nursing homes and private rooms for everyone.
Is Single Payer purely government owned and managed care?
Single payer is essentially Medicare for all. Instead of going to a doctor and having the doctor's staff figuring out which insurance company to send the bill and having the insurance company try to pawn off the cost to another insurance company or deny coverage, etc., the doctor sends the bill to a government entity that evaluates the charges and pays according to a schedule.
Single payer eliminates a large amount of administrative costs. Europeans that I know, report that one goes to a doctor, they get treated and present their card to the staff. That's it.
As a result, all Americans would be covered. If the system is similar to other European systems, the total cost is half of what the U.S. pays and covers everyone. Thus, if we did this today, we wouldn't be debating debt ceilings.
Hardly - it's a "take care of yourself, and stop expecting others to do that for you" mentality.
As for end-of-care costs. Why are we spending millions, no billions, to keep granny alive in a nursing home, when it's obvious she's in pain and has a short time to live? It's because of the fear of lawsuits. What about quality of life? Dems LOVE to pretend they care about people, but they'd rather have granny suffer in her last days, keeping her alive with heroic measures, instead of letting her go peacefully.
I've got a newsflash for you kiddo. Life becomes even more precious as you reach the final years and you treasure each and every day. You may find it hard to believe that even when you are not young and beautiful you still have reasons to live but someday you will learn that you sure do....and I hope you remember the cruel words of dismissal you once used toward those who are now still loving their dwindling lives.
Yes, Medicare will not end but I can replace the system that we have now with a system that gives you only two aspirins and call that Medicare -- but it won't be the same system.
What Ryan's Plan does is replace today's Medicare with a system that provides vouchers worth about 1/3 the cost of insurance and sends future seniors out into the marketplace to buy insurance. Worse, is that as time goes on, the voucher amount doesn't keep up with the cost of insurance.
It's a disingenuous plan that presumes that there are insurance companies willing to insure senior citizens at a price that they can afford. That was the reason Medicare was created in the first place -- seniors couldn't get insurance!!!
To say that Medicare is going to die anyway ignores the fact that budgets are choices. The Ryan Plan, along with savaging Medicare, also reduces tax-rates on the rich from 35% to 25%. That illustrates exactly GOP priorities -- cut taxes on the rich and declare that they have 'no choice' but to cut people's benefits. Well, there is a choice. Tax the wealthy and corporations that aren't paying any taxes enough to provide for the general welfare of our seniors.
By the way, my late Dad was a decorated World War II veteran (who volunteered on Monday, December 8, 1941) who fought the Nazis in North Africa so that you can have the freedom to mouth off here using your First Amendment rights. You should have more respect for brave men such as he.
Just one question for you - how to you feel about your messiah Obama savaging Medicare?
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