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So a SmartPhone is, say, $40 a month (my share of a family plan with data - shared with roommates as a "family"). The phone itself was free with an upgrade - the phone I had before it was 3 years old. The game console that I bought 4 years ago was $200. My iPod was $200 6 years ago when I bought it.
Where am I going to come up with the rest of the $500,000 that my cancer care has cost me to date? Before ACA, for love or money, I could not get health insurance on the private market.
See how ridiculous the "but you have a smart phone!" business is? Even DURING treatment when I was on insurance, I could have bought every electronic I have in my home over again just in copays.
If the idea was to get those covered who can not because they have had previous health problems, that could have easily passed and it wouldn't still be something we fight over today.
Well, does your mother realize that someone else is covering the cost for you?
But I digress.....your question was "What would you have done to make healthcare affordable?"
My answer....while healthcare isn't cheap, neither is health insurance. However, for starts, one small step would have been tort reform. I also would have put a plan in motion appealing to the leftie "big university" boards to start using their BILLIONS in endowments as an incentive for people to attend medical school without the burden of carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt after graduation.
I certainly wouldn't have needed a 2,600 page bill with 70,000 pages of regulations.
Who is this "someone else"? If the poster is on her mother's plan, her mother is paying the premium! The employer kicks in their share. This is not a tax issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffdano
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.
The idea that the consumer is the driver of health care costs is untrue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Iamme73
. . . our infant mortality rates are through the roof
If you don't want to believe the previous poster's link from a conservative blog, perhaps you'll believe this from the British Medical Journal:
It is TRUE that many other countries use a different defintion of "live birth" than the WHO definition, which the US, most other English-speaking countries, and most Scandinavian countries use.
Very simple: I've posted a few year ago how to make healthcare affordable.
Have an extremely limited public option (medicare for all etc) that cannot expand without 80% congressional approval.
This extremely public option can help those with pre exisiting conditions or the poor who need affordable coverage. By the way, the 50 million who are uninsured. Of that amount close to 1/3 have household incomes over 75K a year. The other 1/3 are young adults, most of who do not have pre exisiting conditions and should be able to get health coverage for less than a weekend out drinking (plans are usually less than $100/month with a $2500 deductible)
We really need to focus on the roughly 15-20 million who really can't get coverage whether it's cause they are too old, have too many pre exisiting conditions etc).
The reason I say extremely limited option is to make sure the program doesn't explode up with people and companies gaming the system like big corporation like Walgreens off loading lower income employees to the exchanges.
If Congress wants to expand the public option, than it will require an 80% vote.
There, problem solved. You get your public option. You have a major road block to expanding it. Both Republicans and Democrats would be happy.
Who is this "someone else"? If the poster is on her mother's plan, her mother is paying the premium! The employer kicks in their share. This is not a tax issue.
The idea that the consumer is the driver of health care costs is untrue.
If you don't want to believe the previous poster's link from a conservative blog, perhaps you'll believe this from the British Medical Journal:
It is TRUE that many other countries use a different defintion of "live birth" than the WHO definition, which the US, most other English-speaking countries, and most Scandinavian countries use.
I read the study, all they seemed to do is remove live births for babies born under 500g or 1000g which the US and Canada seem to have much higher incidents and they say if you exclude those live births then America does better.
I think that is technicality that doesn't deal with the issue, of course of you exclude infants deaths then you'll do better.
It still points to America have a huge problem with infant deaths much larger than other nations.
You really should respond to one poster at a time, damn all of that verbiage.
Look I don't debate facts I have already looked up. I have found zero credible sources that support your claims about infant mortality rates in other nations when compared to the US.
In terms of the ACA, I support single payer, but given the political realities, I think the ACA was the only bill that would pass Congress. So its the bill we have.
I am optimistic that the bill will succeed in offering affordable health insurance to millions of Americans and expand Medicaid.
Single payer focuses heavily on preventative care, and that keeps costs down. For instance, I got a package in the mail about two weeks ago, reminding me that I need a mammogram, containing a referral and a list of places to have it done. Today I got a phone call doing follow-up, "Did I get the breast cancer package? Did I make an appointment? Do I have any questions? Do I have an OB-GYN? Thank you and have a nice day."
Last edited by weltschmerz; 10-02-2013 at 10:21 AM..
The idea that the consumer is the driver of health care costs is untrue.
It is true....and continually claiming that it isn't true doesn't alter Realityâ„¢.
Your own government so states it is true, and it is a function of the Laws of Economics.
January 2013
PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
Effect on Long-Term Federal Budget Outlook Largely Depends on Whether Cost Containment Sustained
GAO-13-281
"As personal income increases, people demand more and better goods and services, including health care. This means that holding other factors constant, as higher personal income increases the quantity and quality of care demanded, overall health care spending increases as well. GDP is a good indicator of the effect of increasing income on health care spending. When GDP is growing, many Americans experience increases in income and will demand more health care services. When the rate of GDP growth declines, such as during the recent recession, health care spending growth may slow down; however, the magnitude of impact on health care spending may be smaller than compared to periods of higher GDP growth due to the persistent relationship of increasing income leading to the production of new technologies."
Source: Page 33 GAO-13-281 PPACA and the Long-Term Fiscal Outlook
As I have stated repeatedly, the Laws of Economics apply to everything, as in every "thing," and that includes health care.
Affluenceâ„¢ begets Affluenceâ„¢.
Affluent people --- people with money -- want bigger and better.....name brand clothes, more expensive cars, bigger McMansions, larger televisions, and more health care.
The Laws of Economics apply to health care.
Your General Accounting Office --- which is probably the only sane rational agency left in the US Government --- is understandably concerned about the very negative effects the ACA will have on the US economy, because....
....the Laws of Economics apply to health care.
Your General Accounting Office is in particular concerned with the fact that the Cost Containment claims made by the Obama Administration will never be realized.
Your Medicare Trustees have said the exact same thing, and I have duly quoted them repeatedly (obviously to no avail).
I told you all this before the GAO and your Medicare Trustees came to the same conclusions that I came to and posted here on this forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
If you don't want to believe the previous poster's link from a conservative blog,... .
So, you're saying the United States Centers for Disease Control and the United States National Center for Health Statistics is a "conservative blog?"
I don't even know how to retort to something as bizarre as that.
Seriously, somebody help me out here.....I'm not proud...I'll ask for help....how do you combat that kind of fantastical nonsense?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Iamme73
That link doesn't support your conclusions.
I am very sorry Mr. Göbbels, but those are not my conclusions...those are the conclusions of your own government, and because people are apparently having such a difficult time with this, here is a visual aid....
So.....according to this, um, you know, "conservative blog" it states quite clearly what I quoted earlier.
Do you see my name on there anywhere?
I can see where the United States Centers for Disease Control and the United States National Center for Health Statistics say....
"If the United States had Sweden’s distribution of births by gestational age, nearly 8,000 infant deaths would be averted each year and the U.S. infant mortality rate would be one-third lower."
...but I'm not seeing where it says I say that.
Never ceasing to be amazed at the unmitigated gall of some....
I read the study, all they seemed to do is remove live births for babies born under 500g or 1000g which the US and Canada seem to have much higher incidents and they say if you exclude those live births then America does better.
I think that is technicality that doesn't deal with the issue, of course of you exclude infants deaths then you'll do better.
It still points to America have a huge problem with infant deaths much larger than other nations.
I don't think that is a "technicality". If a country doesn't consider a baby weighing <500 gm a "live birth" such baby doesn't get included as a "neonatal death". If a country doesn't consider a baby that dies in the first 24 hours of life a live birth, that baby doesn't count as a neonatal death.
Many health statistics are figured in the same way. In some countries, death due to a heart attack is attributed to "natural causes", period. So it doesn't count as a cardiovascular death. Etc. That's how the US can have a lower rate of smoking than many countries but still have a supposedly higher rate of death/disability due to chronic lung disease (according to a report published last winter).
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 10-02-2013 at 01:13 PM..
Reason: typo, > should be <
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