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Yet,not one person,heck not even congressman,has offered an alternative.
I haven't read Ted Cruz plan yet.
Does he even have a plan?
I'm not sure I can think of any other way.
The current system cannot stand,however. It was broke.
As an Rn,I see the failures of the current system all the time.
As a 24 year old,there was no way in He** I could afford a $425 private plan?
No way,no how.
This is not difficult. Other nations have much more affordable healthcare, while covering everyone, while spending much less money. This is objective reality.
Now can we do things exactly like other nations, I don't know, but the idea that they are all wrong, and we with our haphazard system that fails to cover more and more Americans each year, with sky rocketing costs, and worse health care outcomes has it right, makes no sense to me.
Number1 thing to bring down health care costs is that doctors and hospitals will have to get less money, just like they do in other nations. We can do this by using other medical professionals to do some of the work of doctors. Like Physician assistants or nurse practitioners doing check ups, etc. We can do this by paying the college expenses of all doctors. We can do this by getting medical schools to pass more doctors, We can build more hospitals etc and so on.
Take out the middle man of private insurance.
Have the government negotiate prices for all medical procedures and prescription drugs.
Cover everyone.
We do those things, then cost increases will slow way down.
Did you have a SmartPhone, a game console, some music device, IPad, etc.? Healthcare is affordable if you prioritize it over "stuff."
There was, what, 30 million people without health insurance and some who couldn't get it because of pre-existing conditions. Assuming none of them were eligible for Medicaid, the system just needed fixing for those people. It certainly didn't need government interference in everyone else's life.
I would require Doctors to accept new Medicare patients. I would do tort reform to take the excess out of malpractice suits.
You will never get tort reform which the MARORITY of lawmakers who are both republican or democrats lawyers.
I favor a loser pays civil system. Of course lawyers don't like that idea either. Lawyers want to sue without facing real monetary consequences for bringing frivolous or threats of lawsuits.
I would pass a law that abolishes the health insurance industry for primary care. I would then negotiate with all of the healthcare providers and facilities a set price for services. I would make each state 100% responsible for providing a minimum level of care for residents of their state. Create a funding formula by which each state would be rebated federal dollars to fund their healthcare system. Set up non-profit corporations run by Drs. and healthcare administrators to run these entities within logical set areas of operation. Other than funding, keep the politicians OUT of the system as much as is possible. This in effect would create a universal healthcare system and if done correctly would cost half as much as the US government is presently spending on a mish mash of conflicting and often complex schemes.
Remove all incentives for employers to buy insurance.
Remove all federal involvement in medicine.
Exactly, the way to reduce costs and increasing quality, is through the free market. Government bureaucracies cannot create better prices and better quality in medicine anymore than they can produce better prices and quality in anything else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Iamme73
Now can we do things exactly like other nations, I don't know, but the idea that they are all wrong, and we with our haphazard system that fails to cover more and more Americans each year, with sky rocketing costs, and worse health care outcomes has it right, makes no sense to me.
Well, this isn't factually inaccurate. The United States has the best health outcomes. Don't let "life expectancy" make you believe that our healthcare outcomes are worse. Our life expectancy being lower than many other western countries, largely has to do with our high murder rate, ethnic composition, rate of drug abuse, and the number of people who are overweight.
If you actually compare survival rates of different diseases here in the United States against those European countries. In almost every case, we simply have a higher survival rate.
But more importantly, where are the innovations in healthcare coming from? Europe? Get real, the healthcare innovations are almost always coming from the United States.
Think of it like this. What would the quality of healthcare be like in Europe right now. If they hadn't imported all our technology and medicines? Thats simple, It would be far far far worse than it already is.
On the other hand, what would the quality of healthcare be like in the United States without Europe? Not significantly different.
I mean, I'm sure rich countries like Qatar and the United Arab emirates have great healthcare. But where are they getting their quality of care? Is it because they are so much smarter than us? No, its because they have lots of money and they either buy everything from us directly. Or they just rip us off, by producing patented medications in their own countries without a patent.
I'll be the first one to line up and say that our healthcare system needs to be better. It is extremely unaffordable. But I get tired of people misrepresenting the problem. The problem is that we have a quasi public/private system. Where the government subsidizes private health insurance, by giving incentives to businesses to provide health insurance. Then creates shortages in medicine, by creating a huge bureaucracy of regulations. Which limits the number of people who can go into medicine, while also driving up the cost of education to such a ridiculous level, that most people can't afford it. Further creating shortages, thus less competition.
If you got the government completely out of medicine altogether, including regulations such as licensing. The cost of healthcare would be a fraction of what it is today. The problem is that, most people are absolutely terrified of "free markets".
1. Focus insurance on catastrophic coverage.
2. People should pay real dollars for their ordinary medical care. They will appreciate the true cost, not the fake cost implied by copays. No one should get an MRI just because their shoulder hurts a little bit.
3. By removing the layer of insurance, costs will become more transparent and real.
4. This will drive health care providers to compete for our business. They will know that what they charge comes out of our wallets.
5. Insurance rates should consider smoking, BMI, and other accepted risk factors. If you are fat and inactive, you should pay more.
Yet,not one person,heck not even congressman,has offered an alternative.
I haven't read Ted Cruz plan yet.
Does he even have a plan?
I'm not sure I can think of any other way.
The current system cannot stand,however. It was broke.
As an Rn,I see the failures of the current system all the time.
As a 24 year old,there was no way in He** I could afford a $425 private plan?
No way,no how.
You are a nurse and the place you work doesn't provide insurance? Also, you still can't afford it. Nothing happened to make it so that you could afford to pay for your coverage.
Now as to what to do. Pull all of our troops from overseas, quit funding terrorist countries and use that money for universal health care.
Exactly, the way to reduce costs and increasing quality, is through the free market. Government bureaucracies cannot create better prices and better quality in medicine anymore than they can produce better prices and quality in anything else.
Well, this isn't factually inaccurate. The United States has the best health outcomes. Don't let "life expectancy" make you believe that our healthcare outcomes are worse. Our life expectancy being lower than many other western countries, largely has to do with our high murder rate, ethnic composition, rate of drug abuse, and the number of people who are overweight.
If you actually compare survival rates of different diseases here in the United States against those European countries. In almost every case, we simply have a higher survival rate.
But more importantly, where are the innovations in healthcare coming from? Europe? Get real, the healthcare innovations are almost always coming from the United States.
Think of it like this. What would the quality of healthcare be like in Europe right now. If they hadn't imported all our technology and medicines? Thats simple, It would be far far far worse than it already is.
On the other hand, what would the quality of healthcare be like in the United States without Europe? Not significantly different.
I mean, I'm sure rich countries like Qatar and the United Arab emirates have great healthcare. But where are they getting their quality of care? Is it because they are so much smarter than us? No, its because they have lots of money and they either buy everything from us directly. Or they just rip us off, by producing patented medications in their own countries without a patent.
I'll be the first one to line up and say that our healthcare system needs to be better. It is extremely unaffordable. But I get tired of people misrepresenting the problem. The problem is that we have a quasi public/private system. Where the government subsidizes private health insurance, by giving incentives to businesses to provide health insurance. Then creates shortages in medicine, by creating a huge bureaucracy of regulations. Which limits the number of people who can go into medicine, while also driving up the cost of education to such a ridiculous level, that most people can't afford it. Further creating shortages, thus less competition.
If you got the government completely out of medicine altogether, including regulations such as licensing. The cost of healthcare would be a fraction of what it is today. The problem is that, most people are absolutely terrified of "free markets".
Again, your information is inaccurate. The bottomline is we have higher rates of disease even amongst well to do white people than other nations, our infant mortality rates are through the roof, etc and so on and "race" can never be used as a reason that it is acceptable to have higher rates of death and lower life expectancy.
Did you know that the life expectancy of white women who don't graduate from high school is dropping and they don't know why?
And you can't even separate out obesity and other ailments from lack of hospital and doctor care, it is impossible to say well maybe if people say the doctor more frequently their diets would improve. You can't just write things off as having nothing to do with lack of access to healthcare just because the connection is not obvious to you.
Again, when taken all together our system is not that great for a lot of Americans and other systems work better have better outcomes less disease, longer lives and everyone is covered and they spend much less.
To say that government drives up the costs has no basis in reality we can look at both medicaid and medicare to see the reality that government healthcare flat out costs less even in this nation.
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